


When We Were Young

by TheAutotheist



Series: The Marks on Our Skin [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Child Abuse, Consensual Underage Sex, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:22:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6918097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutotheist/pseuds/TheAutotheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard Snart met Mick Rory on his first day in juvie when he was fourteen years old. At the time, he didn't know how much that was going to change his life.</p><p>Len and Mick, the early years.</p><p>Oh, also, this is a soulmate AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Leo kept scratching at the inside of his right wrist. It felt like he had a nasty bug bite, and he just couldn’t relieve the itching. As far as he knew, this wasn’t supposed to happen. But then again, maybe most people didn’t encounter the problem Leo had. Namely, he must’ve met his soulmate, and touched him (had to be a him because there were no girls here), and had gotten his soulmark. The problem was that it had happened in the middle of a brawl with six other guys (and one rescuer), so it could have been any one of them. And since he didn’t know who’d give him his soulmark, it itched like crazy.

There was only one thing for it. He’d have to figure out which of the seven guys was the culprit. He wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of one of the six bullies being his soulmate, especially since they’d jumped him on his first day in juvie just because he was small and skinny. And if he was going to place his chips on anyone, it’d be his “rescuer.”

Leo scrunched up his nose at the thought. It made him sound like a damsel in distress, which he most certainly was not. But when you were outnumbered six to one, and the smallest guy attacking you was a least twice your size, there wasn’t anything else you could be. When the leader of the gang had pulled a shiv on him, he’d thought that was it. He would die on his first day in juvie and never see his baby sister again. Who was going to keep her safe from their father if he wasn’t around?

And that’s when this great big walking wall of muscles jumped into the fray. Though he seemed more interested in giving the guys a beating than in helping Leo. But he did still help him. They had to all separate when the guards came to see what the commotion was, and that was when Leo noticed the mark on the inside of his right wrist. It looked like a couple wavy arrows surrounded by a circle. He touched it gently and it was like hitting his funny bone. He felt the shock right up his arm and into his brain.

If it turned out one of those assholes was his soulmate, he was going to shoot himself. So he was hoping it turned out to be the kid who saved him. But he didn’t go to find him right away after the fight broke up. He waited a day. And in that time, he did some research. The gang liked to jump new, small kids to show them who was boss, and would really mess up the ones who fought back, like Leo had. Also, they’d heard of his father, so his reputation preceded him, which didn’t do him any favors. As for his savior, the kid was called Mick Rory. He was two years older than Leo, and was in there for arson. He didn’t talk much, and didn’t tend to hang out with anyone else, so everyone was surprised when he’d jumped to Leo’s aid.

All interesting facts, to be sure. But there was only one way Leo was going to find out if they were soulmates. He had to see if the kid had a soulmark too, and then find out if it’d appeared at the same time. So he sought Mick out in his cell the next day. His cellmate was off with his clique, which left Mick alone.

Leo leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “So I suppose you think I owe you now, or something, right?”

Mick looked up from where he’d been sitting on the bottom bunk, staring at a few gears he must’ve swiped from shop. “Oh. You.”

Leo frowned. “Yeah. Me. Remember? You jumped in to help me yesterday.”

Mick snorted. “You mean I saved your ass from getting a shiv shoved through it.”

Leo’s hand twitched. “Right. Why did you do that?”

Mick shrugged. “They’d have locked down the whole place if some kid died on his first day here. And that weren’t no intimidation. They were out for blood. People get messed up, fine. People die, it ain’t good for anyone.”

Leo moved further into the room. “So it really was all about self interest.”

“What else would it be? I ain’t no hero.” He smirked up at Leo. “So why are you here?”

Leo tapped his right index finger against his arm. “To talk. Maybe it was self interest, but I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t repay debts. So let me know what it is, and I’ll do it. And then we’re even.”

Mick raised an eyebrow as he looked at Leo. “You shouldn’t be so willing to offer yourself up in here. There are some bad kids in here.” Subconsciously, his hand went to his left wrist, where he started scratching at his skin.

Leo’s eyes zeroed in on it. “Well, I’m no angel. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here too.” He continued to stare down at Mick’s arm, hoping he could catch a glimpse of what Mick was scratching at. Finally, he nodded down at it. “Bug bite?”

“Huh?” Mick looked down at his wrist and his eyes widened briefly in surprised. “Uh… no…” He pulled his hand back quickly and shoved his left hand in his pocket.

Leo licked his dry lips and moved even more into the cell. “You wouldn’t… by any chance… happen to have suddenly manifested your… soulmark?”

Mick narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What’s it to you?”

Leo took a deep breath. Fine, he was going to have to put his cards on the table if he wanted to find out. If he was wrong, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t getting together with one of those assholes who’d tried to kill him yesterday. He unwound his arms and offered his right hand out to Mick, with his wrist turned up. With his other hand, he pushed back the sleeve of his sweatshirt. 

Mick’s eyes went wide again, but this time he finally pushed himself up from the bunk so he could move into Leo’s space. He had at least a head on Leo, so Leo had to crane his neck to look up at him. Mick reached out and tenderly placed his index finger against the mark on Leo’s wrist. Just like when Leo had touched it, it sent a shock right up to his brain. He shuddered at the feeling and closed his eyes.

“Before that fight, I didn’t have a mark. After, I had this. So I came to ask if the same happened to you.”

“Looks like a flame,” Mick commented. Leo squinted down at the mark. Now that he mentioned it, it did look like a flame surrounded by a circle.

“Guess that makes sense…” he said.

Mick watched him, and then he pulled his left hand out of his pocket. Slowly, he turned it over so Leo could see the inside of his wrist. His mark was the same size as Leo’s, and on the same place on his left wrist as Leo’s was on his right. It looked like a circle with a six-pointed snowflake in it.

“It’s a snowflake,” Leo said. He reached out with his right hand and touched the mark. Mick shuddered like a similar shock was going through him. So Leo slid his hand up and gripped Mick’s wrist so their marks lined up. The itching went away like magic and the most perfect sense of alignment filled his body.

“Huh,” Mick said as he stared down at their joined hands. He had wrapped his fingers around Leo’s thin wrist at the same time Leo had gripped his own wrist. So he let his thumb stroke against Leo’s skin before pulling his hand back.

“No kidding.” Leo looked up at him. “I’m Leonard Snart, by the way.”

Mick smirked lightly. “Mick Rory. Guess this makes us…” he pointed between them in lieu of actually saying the words.

Leo smirked too. “Soulmates? Who’d’ve thought we’d meet in juvie, of all places.”

“Makes sense for me. I seem to spend more time here than anywhere else.” Mick dropped back down onto the bunk, but this time he indicated for Leo to take a seat next to him.

“Well this is my first time.” Leo sat down gingerly and leaned against one of the metal poles.

“Good little boy who made one little mistake?”

“Hardly.” Leo rolled his eyes. “This was just the first time I was _ caught _ . Trust me, I’ve been in this game since I was eight.”

“So…” Mick smirked. “Like, a year?”

“I’m fourteen!” Leo reached out to smack him. “And I’ll be fifteen in a few months!”

“Yeah?” Mick smiled, amused. “How long you in here for?”

“Three months.” Leo looked at him. “You?”

“I’ve got six more. They want me out before I turn seventeen.”

“Guess that means we have a few months to get to know each other.”

“Guess so.” Mick scooted back so he could have his back to the wall. “Do you really go by Leonard?”

Leo wrinkled his nose. “Rarely. My nickname’s Leo.”

Mick rolled his eyes. “That’s even worse.”

Leo almost opened his mouth to protest, but then he thought about how his father called him Leo when he wanted something, and how he called him Leo when he did something wrong, and how he called him Leo when he was about to give him a beating. “Well then, what would you suggest,  _ Mick _ ?”

Mick shrugged. “I like Len.”

“Len?” Leo asked dryly.

“Or Lenny.”

“You are not calling me Lenny.”

Mick smirked. “We’ll see about that. Lenny.”

“You call me Lenny and I will call you Mickey, like the damn mouse.”

Mick didn’t seem intimidated at all. Instead he laughed. “Well, let’s go with Len.”

He rolled it around in his head. It didn’t entirely suck, and somehow he liked the idea that his soulmate would call him something different than the nickname his asshole father called him. “Well, I don’t hate it,” he said at last.

Mick laughed again. “Sure thing, Len.”

 

The other people weren’t wrong. Mick really didn’t hang around anyone else. Len thought it was because most people were either afraid of him or thought he was stupid, or both. Len didn’t think Mick was stupid. After spending all their free time together for his first week in juvie, he definitely didn’t think Mick was stupid. He just had a bit of a problem with fire.

When the old toaster caught fire in the cafeteria, it was all Len could do to keep Mick from vaulting over the counter to see it. And while he no longer scratched at his mark, his fingers twitched and shook like he was going through some kind of withdrawal. In a way, he probably was.

So the first opportunity Len had, he nicked a book of matches off one of the guards. His father always brought him on jobs because he had tiny, dexterous hands, which made him a born pickpocket. Though it was actually shoplifting that had landed him in juvie. He’d been trying to steal a toy for Lisa and hadn’t noticed the second shop attendant until he was caught.

He walked over to Mick, who sat huddled into himself on the bleachers, staring at nothing. Slowly, Len slipped onto the bleacher next to him and pulled Mick’s hand out of his pocket so he could slip the matchbook into his palm.

Mick rounded on him and squeezed the matchbook, and Len’s hand, before he had a chance to pull it away.

“Where'd you get that?”

“Noticed a few guards smoke. One likes matchbooks, so I figured he wouldn’t mind too much if it went missing.” He stared steadily into Mick’s face. “You looked like you could use it. And this makes us even for my first week.”

Mick huffed out a laugh and let Len’s hand go. He held up the matchbook and carefully pulled out one of the cardboard matches before striking it against the top. The match lit up into a bright flame. Mick watched it reverently, until it burned all the way down to his fingers. He didn’t seem to care if his fingertips got singed. Once that flame died, he pulled out a second match and lit that one. He repeated that with the third, and then the fourth match.

After that, Mick took a deep breath and carefully folded the paper cover closed over the remaining matches. He slipped the matchbook into his pocket and looked over at Len. “Thanks,” he said quietly after a moment.

Len shrugged and buried his hands in his own pockets. “Told you, we’re even now.”

“Right.” Mick smirked, amused. “How’d you know that was what I needed?”

“You’re in here for arson, right? After what happened in the kitchen, I figured what you needed was a bit of fire.” Len felt his lips turn up in a smirk too. “And I’m really good with my hands.”

Mick quirked an eyebrow. “That a fact?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Len continued to tease.

“Not while you’re still jailbait, kid.”

Len frowned. “You’re only two years older than me.”

“And you look like you’re ten.”

Len couldn’t help it. He pouted. “I do not.”

Mick laughed outright. “Especially when you do that.” He leaned over and cupped the back of Len’s head so he could bring their foreheads together. “Thanks for the matches, Lenny. I needed that.”

Len didn’t even bother to tell him off for calling him Lenny. “Sure thing…” He also didn’t bother to point out that he was pretending it was to repay the debt of saving him in the yard. Really, he stole the matches for Mick because he wanted to. He closed his eyes and let his forehead fully rest against Mick’s, liking the feel of that too much to pull away.

After a moment, Mick sighed and pulled his head back. He looked down at Len and let his fingers slide through the close-cropped strands of hair at the back of his head before pulling his hand back too. “Can’t exactly sit here like that. Just asking for trouble.”

“Right…” Len buried his hands even deeper into his pockets. He hated when people touched him. Probably had something to do with his father. But he yearned for Mick’s touch. He’d never yearned for anything before, so it was a strange feeling. And he was trying to hide the fact that he really hadn’t wanted Mick to pull back from the embrace. 

Maybe Mick figured it out anyway. Or maybe he felt the same. Cause he had a big smile on his face. “You seem disappointed.”

Len shuffled around on the bleachers. “No…”

“Sure about that?” Mick continued to grin widely at him.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Len scoffed as she pushed himself to his feet and stepped down off the bleachers.

“You mean like you flatter yourself?”

Len turned to smirk over his shoulder. “But I really am as good as I say.” Mick’s laugh followed him all the way back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote that one really short, horribly sad soulmate AU, and then this thing popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone. 40,000 words later...


	2. Chapter 2

Len should’ve known his little bubble would pop sooner or later. He hadn’t even realized he had started to be content until he was very rudely awakened. And that awakening came in the form of a guard informing him he had a visitor. Len glanced at Mick, not even trying to hide the confusion on his face, but then he got up and followed the guard to visitation. 

He barely walked two steps into the room before he froze in place and his eyes narrowed dangerously. Sitting at one of the metal tables bolted to the floor was his father. Lewis turned around and then smirked when he saw Len.

“Can’t stand in the doorway, Snart,” the guard said and pushed him forward.

Len was proud of the fact he didn’t stumble, but walking across the room towards his father was like walking through molasses. Slowly, without ever taking his eyes off his father, he sat down across from him.

“Looks like you’re managing just fine in here.”

“What are you doing here?” Len bit out.

Lewis’s eyebrow rose in mock surprise. “That’s how you greet your old man? Who came all the way out here to visit his son,” here he lowered his voice so only they could hear “who was stupid enough to try something like petty shoplifting.”

Len barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Though he imagined Lewis wouldn’t really dare raise his hand to Len in here, surrounded by guards. “As if you are above petty crime. That’s all you do.”

“Don’t you sass back to me, boy.” Lewis clenched his hand on top of the table, but didn’t otherwise move.

“Or what?” Len asked calmly.

Lewis ground his fist into the table top. “You think just because you’re in here you’re beyond my reach? You’re only in here two more months. Remember that. Or maybe it’s Lisa who needs to start learning lessons.”

Len jumped to his feet. “Don’t you touch her!”

“Snart!” the guard yelled.

Len glanced over and then turned to stare down at his father. After a moment, he took his seat again. “Leave Lisa alone. I’ll do what you want.”

Lewis smirked. “Just remember that.”

“What  _ do _ you want?”

“I can’t just want to visit my son?”

Len gave him a look and crossed his arms.

Lewis leaned back in his seat. “I came to make sure you’re not getting too comfortable. As soon as you’re done with your little holiday, I’m taking you on a job. And don’t you forget who’s the boss. Kit Maroney owes me, and his kid is in here.”

“You would get someone to beat on your own son?” Len asked dryly.

“Or your sister.”

Len clenched his hands into fists at his sides. “No, I’ll remember. And I’ll be ready to do this job when I get out.”

“Good boy.” Lewis stood and put his hand on Len’s shoulder. He squeezed just hard enough for it to be just the other side of uncomfortable towards painful. He let go before the guard could tell them off for touching.

“I’ll be in touch,” Lewis said as he left.

Len stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked out of the room and was escorted back to gen pop. He’d firmly kept his sleeves down past his wrists during the whole conversation, because he definitely did not want his father to see his soulmark or find out anything about Mick. He was bubbling over with barely contained rage. Even in here, his father could still control him.

It was free time, so Len went straight to Mick’s cell, where he was sure to find him alone. Mick was running through the last few matches from the book Len had stolen for him. He looked up when Len walked into the cell. Len didn’t say anything, he just dropped down onto the bottom bunk next to him, with his right side pressed up against Mick’s left.

“I can’t believe him…” he mumbled. And then he dropped his head into his hands.

Mick hummed and Len heard another match light up and then sputter down. “Who wanted to see you in visitation?”

Len didn’t lift his head. He contemplated how much he wanted to say, but eventually he sighed and said, “My father.”

Mick shifted slightly on the bunk and Len knew he was looking down at him. Len hadn’t really told him anything about his family, except that he had a baby sister, and lived with his father because his mother left. “You don’t like him.”

“That’s an understatement…” Len mumbled. “I hate him. He’s an asshole…” He ran his hands over the top of his head.

Mick carefully pulled Len’s right hand away from his head. He slid his fingers over the soulmark on Len’s wrist, which made Len let out a long, slow breath. And then he squeezed Len’s forearm so their marks matched up. The tension dripped out of Len’s body and he lifted his head to look at Mick. 

“Thanks,” he said quietly and squeezed Mick’s arm back. “It’s just… He threatened to hurt my sister. She’s only two.” With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the photo he carried around with him. It was taken by one of the neighbors only about a month before he was arrested. In it, he had Lisa settled on his hip, while she was doing everything in her power to scramble to the ground.

Mick looked down at the picture. “Only a scumbag would threaten a baby, and his own kid, at that.”

“He so much worse than just a scumbag.” Len shook his head. “You have no idea…”

 

That night was the first night in juvie that Len had a nightmare. He’d had them every so often at home, with his father so close by. But subconsciously, he must’ve thought he was safe from him in here. So of course that night he dreamt about his father beating him, beating Lisa. He woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and spent the rest of the night lying awake in bed, too worried he would go back to that dream if he fell asleep again.

This meant he was practically dead on his feet the next morning. But he wasn’t going to let anyone see that. He’d gotten good at faking his way through life. So he wasn’t going to let anyone think he was vulnerable, especially for those hours where Mick wasn’t hanging around at his side.

The problem was it happened the next night. And the night after that. So by the end of the week, Len would’ve done anything just to be able to sleep peacefully. He stumbled in the cafeteria line, and it was only Mick’s presence at his back that kept him from sprawling flat on his face. He grabbed Len’s upper arm to keep him steady. Probably because he was so tired, and had a long history of not liking being touched, once he had his feet under him, he yanked his arm away.

“Don’t touch me!” he hissed. He went and sat by himself without waiting to see if Mick would follow. So Mick didn’t.

He’d like to think if he hadn’t been so tired, he would have done better the second time he was jumped, but it honestly probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference. He hadn’t seen Mick all day, but his attackers still didn’t leave anything to chance. They waited until Mick was in the joke of classes they had to go to. Even in juvie, they were required by law to go to school.

It was the same group of kids from his first day, plus Kit Maroney’s kid. He’d met the guy a few times on various jobs with his father. The kid was seventeen and huge. He’d probably only barely managed to land in juvie instead of regular prison.

“Your father wants to make sure you respect the hierarchy,” the guy said while he cracked his knuckles threateningly.

“Surprised you or my father even knew the word hierarchy.”

The guy sneered. “Better watch that smart mouth, Snart.”

“Make me.”

“Oh, you are going to regret that.” Maroney had the other guys hold Len down, and took special pleasure in beating the crap out of him. He wasn’t going for any broken bones or otherwise lasting injuries. Probably because Lewis wanted Len able enough to help him on this job in a month and a half. But by the time he was done, Len had quite a few bruises and cuts.

He made his way to a bathroom and washed the blood out of his mouth before sticking his whole head under the faucet. He wiped the water off his face, mindful of the two black eyes that were becoming visible. He carefully prodded at his split lip to see if it would stop bleeding on its own. And then he slowly lifted his shirt so he could see how bad the bruises on his side were. Well, he hadn’t broken anything. But sleeping was going to be a lot harder than it already was.

So the next day, he didn’t even bother to leave his cell during free time. He just lay on his bunk, staring up at the underside of the mattress above him. He was tired and his whole body hurt, so he couldn’t bring himself to be vertical. He just covered his face with his arm, not quite daring to try to sleep and make himself vulnerable, but not wanting to be fully awake either. That was where Mick found him.

He leaned into Len’s cell and said, “You look like shit.”

If it has been anyone else, Len probably would’ve jumped up and told the person off. Even beaten and exhausted, he would’ve wanted to appear tough. Maybe. But he knew Mick wouldn’t hurt him. Though he wasn’t sure when exactly that trust had happened. Maybe as soon as the soulmark appeared.

“Thanks, asshole,” Len mumbled without moving.

“You hiding out in here?”

“I’m not hiding!” Len pulled back his arm and tilted his head back so he could glare up at Mick. “I’m tired.”

The mildly amused and curious expression Mick had been wearing immediately dropped off his face to be replaced by one of unguarded fury. He moved all the way into the cell and knelt by Len’s bunk. He reached out to touch Len’s face before he realized what he was doing, and held his hand just short of actually touching him.

“Who  _ did _ this to you?” he asked in a dangerously low growl.

Len pushed himself up on his elbows to look at Mick. Somehow, the anger rolling off him was comforting rather than scary. But he still said, “It’s fine.”

“It’s  _ not _ fine. Tell me who attacked you.”

“And you’ll do what?”

“Make sure they never fucking touch you again.”

Len appreciated the sentiment. But it wouldn’t make a damn difference if the orders were coming from on high. He dropped back down onto the bunk and covered his face with his hands. “Leave it alone, Mick…” he mumbled through his hands.

“No way. They get away with this, they’ll do it again.”

“They’ll do it again anyway,” Len said before he could think better of it. He was tired, after all.

He could tell Mick tensed up at the comment. “Why do you think that?”

“Cause my father was the one who told ‘em to mess me up.” A moment of silence followed his comment, so he pulled his hand down so he could see Mick’s face.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone as angry as Mick was then. “Then I’m gonna send him a message. So he and everyone thinks twice about touching you.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Was it Sousa's gang again?”

Len swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and sat up. “No, I mean yes, I mean he was involved. But you can’t retaliate. If my father finds out about you…”

“Doubt Sousa will go blabbing.” Mick cracked his knuckles.

“He wasn’t in charge.”

“Gimme a name, Snart.”

Len hesitated. If his father found out about Mick, found out he’d gotten someone to fight back for him… but then again, the thought of giving those guys what they deserved sounded real good. “Maroney.”

“Maroney?  _ That _ punk?” Mick smirked viciously. “This I’m going to enjoy.” He walked out of the cell and Len scrambled up to follow. He winced heavily and his hand went to his side, but he didn’t slow down as he trailed behind Mick.

“Hey Maroney!” Mick called out as he walked into the rec room. The room was crowded, but they could see Maroney at the foosball table.

Maroney looked up when he heard his name, and then all the color drained out of his face. Len had to admit that it was satisfying seeing that. He hung back close to the door of the rec room as Mick made his way over to the foosball table.

“Hey, hey, Rory,” Maroney started babbling, trying to stop this before it started. “Whatever it was you heard, I ain’t done nothing.”

“Yeah?” Mick asked as he stepped right up in Maroney’s face. Len moved around the edge of the room, with his hand still on his side, until he had a clear view of the two of them. The look on Mick’s face was downright murderous. He had a crazy smirk on his face and a manic gleam in his eye. It was maybe the most attractive thing Len had ever seen. “Thing is,” Mick continued, “you and I both know you’re lying.”

Without any warning, he slugged Maroney right in the face, which made him fall back into the foosball table. Mick grabbed him up by the front of his shirt and got in several more punches before Sousa’s gang jumped on him. Len wanted to help, but he only took two steps towards the fray and his whole side lit up in pain.

The rest of the room had caught wind of the fight by now and had formed a loose circle around the group, chanting and egging them on. Even though it was seven to one, Mick held his own just fine, exactly as he had when he’d stopped Sousa’s gang from beating up Len on his first day in juvie. He left the lot of them on the floor and was gone before the guards could push through the crowd of spectators.

“Break it up!” They yelled loudly. One of them grabbed Maroney’s arm and yanked him to his feet. “What’s going on here, Maroney?”

“Nothin’ boss…” Maroney mumbled, holding his hand to his bloody and broken nose. The rest of his face wasn’t much better, looking like a patchwork of bruises. “Foosball game got outta hand is all.”

“Better not get out of hand again.” He stared down at Maroney. “Get yourself to the infirmary and get that fixed.” The guard looked at the others. “The rest of you, clear out! Foosball table is banned the rest of the day.”

There were groans from the onlookers, but most the people involved were happy enough to sneak out of the room, clutching various injuries. Mick sidled up to Len’s side. His knuckles were bruised, and one lucky bastard had managed to get him on the jaw, but otherwise it was definitely a case of you shoulda seen the other guy.

Len grinned up at him madly. “That was spectacular.”

Mick smirked back and felt the forming bruise on his jaw. “Now he knows if he messes with you, I mess with him.”

Len tilted his head slightly and looked up at him. He tightened his arm around his side and whispered, “Thanks, Mick…”

Mick shrugged. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” They left the rec room and started to head back to the cell block.

Adrenaline had kept Len going through the last fifteen minutes or so, but now that it was wearing off, he was crashing hard. He made it only a few more feet before he felt his eyes start to get heavy and his feet start to drag across the floor. Mick only just managed to stop him before he crashed into a pole.

“Sorry…” Len mumbled. “Like I said, ‘m tired…”

Mick steered him around the pole. “I can tell. What’s going on?”

“Haven’t slept in like… five days…” Len yawned and squeezed his side tighter as he leaned into Mick and let him lead.

“What?” Mick looked down at him. “Why the hell not? Is it your cellie?”

Len shook his head. “Can’t fall asleep…”

Mick lead Len to his cell and nudged him to sit down on the lower bunk. He dropped down beside him, essentially blocking any view of him from the door. “Damn, if sleep is what you need, then sleep.”

Len did not even hesitate to rest his head against Mick’s shoulder.

“No one’s gonna bother you while I’m here,” Mick said quietly.

“Mmkay…” Two seconds later, Len was out like a light. Mick carefully wrapped his arm around Len’s smaller frame. His fingers ghosted over the back of Len’s head, and Len moved into the touch.

Affection wasn’t a feeling Mick was used to having. In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever felt it before. But looking down at Len, he felt an affectionate smile come to his face. He knew then he’d probably do anything for this kid.

So he let him sleep against his shoulder for the rest of free time. Ten minutes before they’d be ushered into the cafeteria, his cellie showed up unexpectedly. The guy was older than Len, but younger than Mick, and he’d generally done everything he could to stay out of Mick’s way.

He stopped in the doorway and his eyes went wide as he took in Len sleeping against Mick’s shoulder, and Mick with his arm protectively wrapped around Len.

Mick couldn’t get up to loom over the kid or else he’d wake Len. But he did growl threateningly. “You breathe a word about this to anyone and I will make your last week in here a living hell.”

The guy backed out of the cell with his hands held up in a placating gesture. “Sure thing, Rory. I didn’t see anything. Fact, I didn’t even walk in here.” He retreated quickly.

Len shifted at his side. The conversation must’ve woken him up. “Wassit…?” he slurred, still half asleep. The action was really too endearing for someone like him.

“Dinner,” Mick grunted.

“Oh, right…” Len said slowly. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and Mick dropped his arm from around his shoulders. Len yawned and then winced when the action tugged on the bruises on his face. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Looks like it,” Mick said.

“Huh…” he said quietly. “Didn’t have any…” He trailed off and glanced up at Mick.

Now that they were sitting close and facing each other, Mick could really see the damage. “They did quite a number on you…” he mumbled as he carefully placed his hand on Len’s chin and turned his face back and forth.

“I’ve had worse…” Len mumbled. He didn’t seem to mind that Mick was touching him now, and instead looked steadily into his eyes.

“From what?” Mick asked.

“Take a guess.”

“If I ever meet your father…” he growled.

“You won’t, not if I can help it. It’s better for everyone if he never finds out about you.” He didn’t move out of Mick’s grasp, but he pulled up the right sleeve of his shirt. “About this.”

Mick frowned. He didn’t need to look down to tell Len was pointing out his soulmark. “Still…” His thumb traced Len’s swollen and scabbed bottom lip.

Len parted his lips slightly in surprise, but he didn’t pull away. In fact, he leaned in closer to the touch. “Mick…” he said softly.

Before they could do anything, the guards moved through the cell block, moving the delinquents to the cafeteria. Mick and Len jerked back before anyone could see them, which made Len hiss in pain and wrap his hand around his side again.

Mick frowned as he stood up. “Maybe you should go to the infirmary…”

“It’s fine. Just hurts. It’ll heal in a week or two.” Len got to his feet and leaned on the frame of the bunk bed.

“You’re used to these kinds of injuries.”

“Yup,” Len said. He moved around Mick and shuffled into the line of other kids headed for the cafeteria. Mick just followed him silently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just switch POVs in the middle of a paragraph? Yes, yes I did. Also, protective Mick is the best Mick.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos! Before this, I was writing in a fandom and shipping so over-saturated with fics that hardly anyone would comment. So I really appreciate all the nice things you have to say.

So Mick definitely considered Len jailbait. Even if they were both underage, it would be very wrong for Mick to make any kind of move on Len considering he was fourteen. But apparently his brain didn’t get that memo.

More than once he’d dreamt about tossing Len down onto his bunk and having his way with him. Though, in his dreams, Len never minded. He would also dream about Len sauntering into his cell and being the one to take the lead. He would plant himself between Mick’s legs and wrap those sinful lips around him.

Needless to say, it was frustrating as all hell. He wondered if all soulmates went through this kind of thing. If he’d first met Len when they were adults he might’ve just pushed him up against the nearer flat surface. After all, it was clear even at fourteen that Len was going to be really good looking when he filled out.

The bruises did fade after a week or so. Mick made sure to glare at Sousa and Maroney every time he passed either of them, but he was pretty sure they would give Len a wide berth from now on. Len still wasn’t sleeping, though. He didn’t say as much, but considering how tired he was every day, Mick could guess.

More often than not, he would sit next to Mick and fall asleep with his head on Mick’s shoulder. Since he seemed to have no trouble sleeping if Mick was around, Mick figured he had to take matters into his own hands.

His old cellmate had left only a few days before. He’d looked pretty happy to be seeing the last of Mick. They hadn’t yet assigned someone new to the lower bunk in his cell, so one afternoon, he slid up to the guard in charge of cell assignments.

“You should move that Snart kid into my cell,” he said.

The guard didn’t move from where he was standing with his arms crossed. “Why?”

“Cause Snart’s cellmate is out of here soon. So there’ll be a whole empty cell you can auction off to the highest bidder.”

The guard half turned to glare at him. “Get out of here, Rory.” He hadn’t immediately disagreed with Mick’s suggestion.

Mick smirked. “Sure thing, boss.” He walked off, pretty confident the action would be followed through.

Sure enough, the next day the guard appeared at his cell and said, “Got a new cellmate for you, Rory.” He stepped out of the way to reveal Len standing behind him with his stuff in his arms.

Len looked like he was trying really hard to not smirk openly at Mick. He waited until the guard was gone before he dropped his stuff on the bunk and said, “This was you?”

Mick dropped down to the floor from the top bunk. “Figured you’d like this better.”

“Hell yeah,” Len said, letting the smirk spread over his face.

Mick slipped his hand inside the loose cuff of Len’s right sweatshirt sleeve until their marks lined up. Len let out the same pleasant sigh he did every time Mick touched his mark. He gently squeezed Mick’s forearm and the smirk briefly slipped to be replaced by an actual smile.

“Though it’ll only be for a few more weeks.” Len looked down at their clasped hands. “Strange to think I’d rather stay in juvie than be out in the world again.”

“Saying you’re gonna miss me?” Mick teased.

Len rolled his eyes. He squeezed Mick’s arm once more and then let their hands slip apart. “Not if you’re an ass about it.”

Mick wanted to pull Len into his arms, but he couldn't with how open the cell was. That was why the most they could do was press their soulmarks together. “Well, I’ll miss you too.”

“It’s only three more months after that and we’ll be able to see each other again. Outside these walls.”

Knowing Len, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was counting down the days for both releases. 

Having Len as his cellmate gave them way more alone time than they’d ever had previously. But the biggest thing that changed was how Len slept.

It was that first night that Mick got to see for himself just what Len was going through. He was normally a pretty heavy sleeper. You had to be to get any sleep in this place. But he was woken in the middle of the night by some groans, and the bunk below him moving slightly.

Mick leaned over the edge to look down and saw Len thrashing around in his sleep. His face was paler than usual and his lips moved in soundless words. Mick rolled onto his stomach and reached his arm down to touch Len’s shoulder.

“Hey, Len… wake up…” he whispered.

Len didn’t seem to register the touch at all, and didn’t wake up. So Mick pushed himself up and carefully crawled down. He knelt by the bed and shook Len’s shoulders.

“Len… Lenny…” he whispered.

Len’s eyes snapped open and he stared blindly at the underside of the top bunk. And then his pupils focused and he turned his head to look at Mick.

“Mick…?” he said shakily, and then seemed surprised by how weak his own voice sounded. He covered his face with his hand and whispered, “Fuck…”

Mick didn’t move his hands from Len’s shoulders. Instead he squeezed them comfortingly. “This why you haven’t been sleeping?” he asked quietly.

Len ran his hand over his face and up over his close-cropped hair. His eyes found Mick’s face again. “Yeah… it was… My father… Sometimes I…” He groaned in frustration at his inability to string a sentence together.

Mick looked down at him for a moment and then said, “Shove over.”

Len looked at him curiously. “What?”

“Scoot over.” Mick pushed Len over slightly, and he seemed to get the hint because he moved closer to the wall so Mick could sort of fit on the bunk with him. In order to make them fit better, he wrapped his arm around Len and pulled him to his chest.

Len made a slight noise of annoyance but only tried to resist a bit. Once it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere, though, he carefully rested his head on Mick’s shoulder.

“You can’t stay here, though,” he said quietly. “If the guards find us like this…”

“I’ll go back up to my bunk before the next round,” Mick said. “Now get back to sleep.”

Len titled his head up so he could look up at Mick’s face briefly. His expression was hard to read. Then he looked back down and scrambled his hand across Mick’s chest until he found his left wrist. He squeezed their soulmarks together and then dropped Mick’s hand.

Mick hadn’t really been planning anything when he’d crawled into the bed with Len. He knew he had to sneak back up to his bunk before the guards made their next round. But he did wait until he heard the change in Len’s breathing that meant he’d fallen asleep. After making really sure, Mick ran his fingers over the back of Len’s head and then carefully extracted himself from the smaller boy.

He made it back into his bunk just as a guard’s flashlight moved through their cell. Len didn’t wake up, and Mick pretended to be asleep. Once the guard moved on, Mick leaned over the bunk again to look down at Len. He was sleeping peacefully, a small smile on his face. Mick lay back on his back and put his hand behind his head. He felt pleased with himself and content in a way he usually wasn’t. Also, he’d liked the feel of having Len in his arms.

 

Maybe that was the turning point for them. Sure, they were soulmates, and they’d known that since their first real conversation. But that didn’t mean a lot to a pair of kids who were used to people who should’ve been important in their lives letting them down. Len was never sure if his parents were each other’s soulmates. Not that he really thought it mattered. His father was still going to be a bastard, and his mom would still leave. So he was always going to have to learn how to trust whoever ended up being his soulmate. In the most unlikely place, in the most unlikely way, he trusted Mick Rory.

While he’d maybe convinced himself that the first thing he’d done for Mick was about paying him back for saving his ass on his first day, he knew for a fact Mick had helped Len because he wanted to. He’d beaten up Sousa and Maroney so they knew to never mess with Len again. He’d gotten Len moved to his cell and actually stopped his nightmares. There were still nights when Len would wake up in a cold sweat, horrible images making imprints on the insides of his eyelids. But then Mick would be there. He would run his thumb over Len’s soulmark until he calmed down, and then hold him until he fell asleep. Len would be fifteen by the time Mick got out of juvie, so he was hoping by then he’d be able to convince Mick to do more than just hold him.

He knew when Mick used up the last of the matches he’d stolen for him weeks ago. And when he snuck up to one of the other guards who smoked, one who he knew used a lighter, he didn’t do it to pay Mick back. He did it because he wanted to. He did it because, somehow, Len had started caring about another human being aside from his sister. If someone had told him four months ago he’d be in this place, he probably would’ve punched them.

Len found Mick outside. He had a class that ran longer than Mick’s, but they did happen to have yard time that overlapped after. The kids were sent out to the yard no matter the weather outside. And quite honestly, it was better than being stuck inside the cell block. That particular day, it was icy cold, but not snowing. The sun was still out, but it was faded. Len took a deep breath of the frigid air and felt it go down his lungs. He liked the cold. It woke up his senses and made him feel that much more. Which was probably the opposite of everyone else, who went numb in the cold.

Mick, however, did not seem happy to be outside in the cold. He sat huddled against one of the walls of the building with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, and a beanie pulled low over his ears. Len dropped down to sit next to him and let his thigh bump up against Mick’s.

“God I wish I could burn somethin’ down now…” Mick mumbled without moving from his position.

“Might be able to help you out with that,” Len drawled. He produced the lighter he’d snatched off the guard from his pocket and held it between two fingers in front of Mick’s face.

Mick eased out of his huddle and let his legs extend out on the ground in front of him. He glanced at Len and then reached out and snatched the lighter out of his fingers. In one quick, fluid motion, he clicked on the flame. He looked at it for a minute and then held the palm of his other hand over the flame.

Len watched him and drew up his knees so he could rest his elbows on them. “Better than matches, right?”

Mick didn’t respond for a minute, but eventually he snapped the lighter closed and turned his head to look at Len again. “Much better.”

“Just be careful you don’t get caught with it,” Len said with a shrug.

“I know.” He reached out and cupped the back of Len’s head with his large hand. “Thanks, Lenny.”

Len huffed out a laugh, but he leaned into the warm fingers on his scalp. “No problem. It’s like taking candy from a baby. You’d think they’d be more aware considering half the kids are in here for stealing.”

“Maybe you’re just better than most thieves.”

“Hell yeah I am.” Len smirked.

“And cocky, too.” Mick pulled back his hand so he could click on the lighter again.

“No reason to be humble when you’re good at something…” Len watched Mick watch the flame. That strange calm that came over him when Mick touched his soulmark, that was how Mick looked when he was around fire. Reverent, serene, awed. Len probably should’ve been worried, but instead he felt like he could watch Mick watch fire all day.

“Wish I had something to burn…” Mick mumbled without taking his eyes off the fire. 

Len was used to Mick making comments like this. And he’d started to realize it was Mick’s way of venting. If he didn’t get to look at fire or burn something for too long a period, he started to shake and went looking for a fight. Which was why Len had stolen that lighter. And that was why he pulled a small notepad out of his pocket.

“Use this,” he said.

Mick tore his eyes off the fire to look over at Len. After a moment, he reached out for the notepad, but Len held it back.

“Don’t let anyone see you burning stuff, okay? Not gonna be able to steal you stuff whenever you want.”

Mick smirked in amusement and then snatched the notepad out of Len’s hand. “Got it, boss.” He tore out one of the pages and used their bodies to block the view to the guards patrolling the yard before he held the flame under the edge of the paper. He set the burning paper on the asphalt and watched it turn to ash. The pad was smaller than Len’s palm, so it didn’t take long for the fire to eat through the single sheet of paper.

Len settled back down to watch Mick watch the fire. He stretched out his right leg and pressed it against Mick’s, though Mick didn’t seem to notice. Len let his fingers slide over the point where their legs were touching, content in the silence.

Without taking his eyes off his next sheet of burning paper, Mick slid his left hand inside Len’s right and trapped it against the top of his thigh. Len could feel the throb of blood pulsing through his veins directly under where their soulmarks were pressed together. He reveled in that feeling. And Mick reveled in the burning paper. They had to stop both before either were ready.


	4. Chapter 4

About a week before Len’s release date, Mick made a decision. The day Len was out of there, when they were still alone in the cell, Mick was going to kiss him hard enough that he would never forgot him. Though Len had assured him on several occasions there was no way he could forget Mick or his release date in three months.

The whole week before, Len was all nervous energy. He couldn’t stop pacing when they were in their cell. He’d interrupt the pacing only to pull the photo of him and his baby sister out of his pocket and stare at it. Otherwise, he didn’t talk about what he was going to do when he got out. He almost ignored that it was going to happen.

The couple times Mick asked about it, Len said they could talk about it later. He’d give him all the details the day before he was out. He didn’t want to think about leaving Mick behind and having to go back to living with his asshole father before then. So they didn’t talk about it. Which was a huge mistake.

Three days before Len’s release, Maroney and Sousa and their gang cornered them on the way back from the yard. “Seems we’ve been owing you some payback,” Maroney said viciously.

“Haven’t we already done this song and dance?” Len drawled boredly. “It’s always ended badly for you.”

“Not this time, pretty boy,” Maroney said. He nodded and two guys grabbed Len’s arms from behind.

Mick immediately turned to punch the closest one in the face, but one of Sousa’s guys caught him by surprise by punching him in the gut. This time, Sousa had way more than five guys. Mick didn’t exactly have friends in here, and Sousa had found quite a few who wanted to lay into Mick. He could handle five or six guys on his own, but this was at least ten.

“Let me go, you bastards!” Len snarled as he kicked and bit at the two huge guys holding him down. For some reason, they were only holding him back, not beating him up.

“You daddy doesn’t want you hospitalized,” Maroney said as he waited for the opportunity to give Mick a particularly brutal kick in the face. “But we can do whatever we want to the dumb oaf.” 

Mick growled and charged right into Maroney, knocking him off his feet to the cement floor. He pinned the other boy down and used both fists to start pummeling his face. His vision was filled with red, and he only focused on making sure Maroney didn’t get up from this fight. So he didn’t hear the whistles until guard were yanking him off Maroney and beating him down.

“What the fuck is going on here, Rory?” The head guard yelled as they pushed him to the floor and cuffed his hands behind his back.

“He went crazy!” Maroney said from where he was lying on the floor. “Just started attacking everyone, like a mad dog!”

“It’s true!” Sousa said.

Mick looked over to see Sousa’s guys weren’t holding Len back anymore, but there was a wall of guards and curious onlookers between them now. 

“Alright, that’s it, Rory!” The head guard yelled. They hauled him to his feet and pushed him towards the exit from the cellblock. “You’re spending the next three days in the SHU.”

“What?” Mick stared at him. “No, wait, boss, listen…”

“Shut up!” the guard yelled.

“I can’t spend the next three days in solitary!” Mick said quickly. He looked over his shoulder to find Len’s face. Len’s eyes were wide with anger and shock. “Len… Lenny…” Mick said before he was shoved away from the rest of the kids.

He growled and paced around the cell his first day in the SHU, wishing he could burn the whole place down, but by the second day he only sat on the floor with his head tilted back against the wall. Len liked schedules, kept track of everything. But this time he felt like the one counting down the minutes until Len’s release.

When he was released back into the general population, he returned to an empty cell. The few things Len had were gone. It was like he’d never been there at all. Mick dropped down onto the bottom bunk, which Len had occupied for the last month. He was going to fucking kill Maroney and Sousa the next time he saw them.

He stared up at his bunk, and that was when he saw the folded piece of paper tucked into one of the mattress’s coils. He pulled it out and unfolded it to find it was one of the pieces of paper from the notepad Len had given him for burning.

_ Will be in touch. Don’t worry. I remember your release date. See you in three months. -Len _

There were no other details. Mick flipped over the paper and even held it up to the light to make sure that was all. Len had probably been worried someone might find it while Mick was gone, so he hadn’t wanted to leave his phone or address. Which meant Mick still had no way to contact him.

Two weeks later, he unexpectedly received a letter. Before Len, the only people outside juvie who even knew he existed were his current foster family. And they’d definitely never written to him. The first thing Mick saw was that the return address on the envelope was fake as shit. That piqued his interest, but he waited until he was alone to tear it open.

_ Sorry, no return address. Can’t risk this coming back to my house and my father finding it. Can’t risk getting anything at the house. Have to mail this from a box downtown.  _

_ Can’t come visit either. Wish I could, but there’s no way I could get out there without my father knowing. Staying low for the next few months. You should keep your head down too. Don’t do anything to push back your release date or I swear to god I will beat the crap out of you, Mick Rory. _

_ See you soon. _

_ -Len _

This time, a drawing of a snowflake accompanied Len’s name on the paper. It was a pretty good replica of the snowflake Mick had on the inside of his left wrist. He turned his hand over to look at it and then he pressed his fingers into the spot. He liked to think maybe all the way over in Central City, Len could tell.

A couple weeks later, Mick received another letter. This one was equally short, and seemed to be written in just as much of a hurry. There was a different fake return address. In place of Len’s name, there was only the snowflake soulmark.

Mick carefully folded up the letter and kept it with the other ones in his pocket next to the cheap plastic lighter Len had stolen for him. Just as Len had suggested, he’d kept his head down. And if Sousa and Maroney got caught with contraband due to a small fire that broke out in their cell (ironically, the cell Len had vacated and left empty), well that couldn’t be traced back to Mick.

Mick would have loved to write back to Len and tell him the whole story, but he’d have to wait until his release date. Every couple weeks, he got another letter. They usually talked about random, innocent things. In one, Len told him about how he’d taken his baby sister to learn to ice skate when the lake froze over. In another, he mentioned how he’d stolen a pastry from a local bakery on his birthday and split it with Lisa while his father was off on a job that he hadn’t dragged Len on.

Len didn’t mention his father much, but Mick had the sense he was always around. There were a few hints here and there about jobs Len would be dragged on, but Mick knew there was a lot not being said about Len’s father.

The last letter Mick received in juvie came a week before his release date. This was the shortest one yet. It said simply,  _ Central City Natural History Museum. 4 P.M. See you there. _ It was signed by the snowflake once more.

Mick smiled widely when he read the message. He was itching to get out of there. There were more than a few times in the last couple of days where he’d almost been caught because he had to look at the flame from his lighter. He’d run out of paper to burn, and the temptation to set fire to more of Maroney and Sousa’s stuff was almost more than he could resist. But Len’s letter, and his earlier warning about not pushing back his release date, kept him at bay.

The day of his release, no one was waiting for him. His current foster family had been informed, and they had agreed to take him back, though he imagined it wouldn’t be very long before they’d want to get him out of there. But they hadn’t come to get him. Well, fuck ‘em. Soon enough, he’d be able to strike out on his own and get out of the system completely.

He took a bus to downtown Central and arrived there in the late afternoon. He wandered until he came to the steps of the Natural History Museum. The place wasn’t very busy. Only retired couples and school groups were there that day. Since Mick had barely any money, he didn’t actually go past the lobby. He went in just to make sure Len wasn’t there, and then he went back out to the steps. It was a brisk day, but not too bad. Besides, he only had half an hour til four. And then they’d go… well, Mick didn’t really care where they went, as long as he could follow Len.

He flipped his lighter on and off. While some people gave him strange looks, and the parents with young children gave him a lot of room as they walked around him, no one told him off or tried to take the lighter like they would’ve in juvie. So long as he didn’t actually light something on fire, he’d be fine.

The big clock at the corner of the square chimed four, and Mick looked up, expecting to see Len’s face in the crowd. The guy was meticulous as hell, so it wouldn’t have surprised Mick if he was there just as the clock was done chiming.

But Len wasn’t there.

Mick stood up and walked around the square, just to make sure he wasn’t missing him. And then he wandered back to the steps of the museum. He glanced in the lobby again, but it was still mostly empty. He walked around the square again, but always went back to the steps of the museum. After half an hour of this, he sat back down in a place where he had a good view of the square. Anyone coming out of the museum would also have to pass him.

Maybe he was just late. Probably had to go to school again now that he was out of juvie. So he might’ve gotten held up there and couldn’t get downtown by four. Or 4:30. Every few minutes, Mick glanced up at the big clock, which continued to tick away later and later.

He heard an announcement from the museum at five, stating the museum would be closing in an hour. So he got up and went back into the lobby. He waited until it had mostly cleared out and then went to the ticket taker.

“Hey, you seen a kid come through here, ‘bout this high,” he held up his hand to his shoulder level, “really short, black hair, kinda skinny? Probably by himself.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar,” the ticket-taker said as she popped her bubblegum. “You gonna buy a ticket, or are you gonna just keep wandering through here?”

Mick shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked back outside. He planted himself once more on the top steps of the museum. It had hit the point where streams of people were leaving, and no one new was going in. He nervously flicked his lighter on and off, and more than once almost caught his jacket sleeve on fire.

The sun slowly started to set, and the air got much colder and icy, but there was still no sign of Len. The last of the museum patrons left, and fifteen minutes later, the ticket-taker walked out. She chatted with the night guard before he locked the doors behind him and she started down the steps. 

She paused when she saw Mick sitting there. “Hey, kid…” she said uncertainly. “You know you can’t stay here, right? The night guard’ll probably kick you out soon.”

“Right,” Mick mumbled. “I’m waiting for someone.”

She bit her lip in hesitation. “Maybe… you should call it a night. Hate to break it to you, but I don’t think your friend is coming.”

Mick didn’t say anything. He only wrapped his hand around the lighter in one pocket, and Len’s letters in the other. So the woman shook her head and continued on.

When Mick was one of the last people in the public square, he was about to concede defeat, and admit the ticket-taker was right. Len wasn’t coming. He clicked his lighter off for the last time and pushed himself to his feet with a sigh.

But just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw a figure running towards him. The guy was small, skinny, and had a hood pulled up over his head. He stopped a good fifteen feet in front of Mick, and his shoulders rose and fell like he was panting heavily.

Even from across the square, Mick would’ve recognized that figure anywhere. Though it did look like Len had grown an inch or two in the three months since they’d seen each other. Len looked at him with wide eyes as he tried to catch his breath. The hood and coming night threw his face into shadow, but Mick could still make out the expression.

“You’re still here…” he said after a minute of silence. “I thought for sure you would’ve left after I didn’t show…”

“You’re late,” Mick said in a soft monotone. He squeezed the lighter in his pocket, but he forced any emotions from coming to his face.

Len frowned. “I know. I… I tried to come as soon as I could, but my father…” He trailed off and looked away. Both his hands were clenched into fists.

“But you’re here now.”

Len looked back up at him. “Of course I’m here. I wasn’t going to leave you like that.” He took one hesitant step forward, and then another. And then he covered the rest of the distance in several quick strides.

Mick didn’t even hesitate this time to pull the smaller boy into his arms and hold on tightly. Len turned his face into Mick’s neck and gripped fistfuls of his jacket in his hands.

“I missed you…” he whispered.

“Missed you too.”

After a minute, Mick pulled back so he could look down at Len. At this distance, he could see what Len had been trying to hide by wearing a hoodie. His face was a patchwork of bruises, both fading green and yellow ones, and fresh blue and purple ones, all down the left side of his face, from a black eye, to swelling on his jaw, and what was clearly a handprint on his neck.

Mick carefully pushed the hood back so he could better see the damage. “Oh my god, Lenny…” he whispered. This was ten times worse than anything either of them had received in juvie. He carefully  touched Len’s chin on the side that wasn’t mottled bruises.

Len closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. “Told you I’d had worse…”

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking burn him alive. Your father better never cross my path otherwise I’ll fry him.”

Len shook his head and raised his hand to wrap his fingers around Mick’s wrist. Mick’s soulmark thrummed against Len’s fingertips. “It’s better me than Lisa. I can take this. She can’t.”

“Neither of you should have to,” Mick growled. His grip on Len’s face tightened slightly and Len opened his blue eyes to look up at him again.

Mick had imagined their first kiss being all heat and passion. He didn’t like being calm or slow about anything. It was the expected thing to happen with all that tension that had been crackling between them since their first encounter six months ago. Instead, he leaned down and kissed Len oh so tenderly, mindful of the bruises on the side of his face and his neck.

Len sighed into the kiss and pressed his fingers into Mick’s soulmark, holding Mick’s hand against his face. Mick’s other arm curled around Len’s waist, pulling him close to his chest again. So Len gripped his thick arm and held on tight.

Neither of them wanted to be the one who pulled back for air. So they chased the kiss until both were dizzy. And even then, they only pulled back long enough to gulp down air and then were on each other again. Len moved his hand to wrap his arm around Mick’s neck so he could press closer into his body and kiss him harder. Mick slid his hand to hold the back of Len’s head and parted his lips so he could slide his tongue past Len’s. 

Len groaned through the kiss and tightened his grip on Mick’s arm. He held onto Mick like he would fall away into nothingness if he wasn’t. The next time they pulled back, Mick kept his hand on the back of Len’s head and dropped his forehead against Len’s. 

They stayed like that for a quiet moment, both with their eyes closed, breathing in each other’s inhales and exhales. Mick stroked his fingers across the back of Len’s head. His hair was a bit longer, like he hadn’t gotten it cut in a little while, but it was still close-cropped. He brought his hand back around to hold Len’s face, which made him open his eyes and look at Mick again.

Len slipped his fingers back down Mick’s hand. He carefully pulled Mick’s hand off his face so he could grip his forearm and line up their soulmarks. They both exhaled at the same time when the alignment lit up that feeling of balance that could almost be as intoxicating as any perfect high. As the perfect score. As a raging fire. 

Finally, they extracted themselves from each other’s arms, even though it seemed like it physically pained both of them to do so. Len carefully pulled his hood up back around his face.

“Come on…” he said quietly. “There’s a diner near here that has pretty cheap food and is open late.” 

He lead the way and Mick followed. Neither touched each other as they walked into the small diner. They sat down at a booth in the corner, away from any of the other patrons.

“Hey, honey,” a middle-aged woman said as she walked over to pour two cups of coffee. “Haven’t seen you in here for a little while.”

“Been busy,” Len said evasively. He had his left side to the wall, but he still didn’t put down his hood. The woman, who had a name tag that stereotypically said “Dottie” gave him a long, measured look, taking in the hood, and what little she could see of Len’s face. But she didn’t comment.

Instead, she said, “You boys want pancakes? Snotty family ordered some and sent them back a minute ago, so they’ll just go to waste if you don’t eat them. On the house.”

Len cracked a small smile. It wasn’t even the smirk he normally turned on the outside world. It was a real smile. “Thanks, Dottie.”

She nodded and left them alone. Mick looked over at Len and raised one eyebrow. Len just shrugged and burrowed his hands into his pockets as he slouched down in the booth.

“She was friends with my grandfather before he… Well, he took care of Lis and me when my father would be…” Len waved one hand to encompass everything his father was and everything he did. It was such a lackluster gesture that it made Mick’s blood boil. He wrapped his fingers around his lighter in his pocket to ground himself.

Len wrapped his hands around the steaming cup of coffee. He didn’t add any cream or sugar to the coffee, and took a sip of it. Mick didn’t known many fifteen-year-olds who drank coffee black. He didn’t know many fifteen-year-olds who drank coffee, period.

“Thanks for waiting…” Len said quietly.

“Thanks for coming,” Mick said.

Len huffed out the barest laugh, but kept his eyes on the coffee.

“So what happens now?” Mick asked. He hadn’t put much thought into what would come after they were reunited, even though he logically knew they couldn’t stay together. “I assume you have a plan.”

“Well,” Len drawled out slowly. He leaned back in the booth and his eyes drifted up to Mick’s. “Obviously you can’t come back to my place, not with my father there.” He shook his head. “Wish I could find some way around that, but right now I’m stuck there.”

“I’ve got a foster family to stay with,” Mick found himself saying. “At least for a little while until they kick me back to social services.”

“And then?” Len asked.

Mick shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. Or I’ll get sent to another family. Or I’ll get arrested again.”

Len frowned. “Not if I can help it.”

Mick smirked. “And what are you gonna do about it?”

“The trick is to not get caught.”

“You got caught.”

Len waved his hand like he was waving off the comment. “I got caught shoplifting and my father thought I needed a lesson. I’ve never been caught doing the real stuff.” He looked at Mick. “You need stuff to burn? I’ll find you stuff to burn and make sure you don’t get arrested for it.”

Mick didn’t think he’d ever heard such beautiful words. And he knew he was already in trouble. “Sounds real nice, Lenny,” he said as he finally took a sip of coffee.

“Lenny?” Dottie asked as she walked back over with the plate of pancakes. She set it on the table between the two of them. “No more Leo?”

“No,” Len said stiffly.

“And here I thought I’d only hear little Lisa call you Lenny. Speaking of, show me the goods, Snart.” Dottie held out her hand expectantly.

Len smirked widely and reached into his pocket to pull out a picture. It seemed to be of Lisa unsteadily making her way around the ice. “She learned to ice skate a few weeks back.” Len caught Mick’s eye and smiled just for him. Mick didn’t think anyone cared about anyone else as much as Len cared about his baby sister.

“Oh, she is just so precious,” Dottie cooed at the picture. “Bring her with you the next time you’re here.” She handed the picture back to Len, gave Mick one short, measured look, and then walked back off to the kitchen.

Len looked at the picture for a moment and then hid it back in his pocket. “I was thinking,” he said as he picked up a fork, speaking like they hadn’t been interrupted, “since I’ve got to go back to living with the asshole, and you’ve got to go back to foster care, we meet here, once a week, Friday afternoons. That way I can check on you, you can check on me.” He stabbed a piece of pancake and bit into it. He swallowed and looked at Mick. “We see each other every week and… my father doesn’t find out.” His hand seemed to subconsciously grip his right wrist.

Mick grunted and picked up the fork to tear into the pancakes as well. “That to protect me or him?”

“Trust me, I’d like nothing better than to watch you kill him. But then you’d end up in prison, and Lis and I would end up in the system, where I can’t protect her. At least this way, I can protect her from the worst of it…”

“For how long, Len?”

“Until I can get us out of there. Together.” Len stared at him, as if daring him to suggest something else.

“You really would do anything for your sister.”

Without missing a beat, Len said, “Yes I would.” He took another bite of the pancakes. “So what do you say? 4 P.M., on Fridays?”

Mick looked at him. “I’ll be here.” He didn’t say he had nowhere else to be. And really, whatever plan Len came up with, he knew he’d follow it.

They finished the pancakes and Len left a few bucks to cover the coffee. As they walked out, Mick huddled into his jacket against the cold. “So what now?”

“Got something to show you,” Len said. Without any further explanation, he headed for the bus stop. A few minutes later, the bus pulled up. There were very few passengers on it, and by the time they got off, there were even less.

It was definitely not a good part of town, not that Mick was too worried. Mick actually dared any thugs to try to mess with him. Len didn’t seem worried. He was probably used to seedy places from the jobs his father brought him on.

He lead the way into a seemingly abandoned warehouse. There were some crates piled around, a few ratty couches, and some metal trashcans. Otherwise, the place was empty.

“What’re we doing here, Len?” Mick asked as he looked around.

“Still got the lighter I stole for you?” Len asked as he made his way to the center of the floor.

“Of course.” Mick’s hand wrapped around it in his pocket.

Len stopped in front of one of the metal trashcans and nodded down into it. “Figured you haven’t really had anything to burn in a while. So I made you a present.” Len looked over his shoulder and smirked at Mick. “Have at.”

“Really?” Mick walked over to the trashcan and saw it was filled with various burnables. He smirked at Len briefly, and then in one quick motion, extracted the lighter and snatched up a piece of paper. He clicked on the lighter and held it to the corner of the paper. He let the paper catch fire and burn almost all the way down before he dropped it onto the pile. 

He grabbed another paper to light, and another one, and by the time he finished, the whole can was a blazing inferno. He could feel the heat coming off it in waves, licking the chill off his skin. He thought maybe he hadn’t been warm like this in a long time. The urge to stick his hands in the fire and let the heat burn his skin off was almost too strong to bear. Just as he was thinking of reaching out, Len sidled up to his side and slipped his right hand around Mick’s left. His jacket sleeve was yanked up to his elbow, and he worked Mick’s jacket up until both their forearms were bare. He squeezed Mick’s hand and lined up their soulmarks.

Mick sighed and let the feeling ground him, but he didn’t take his eyes off the flames. “It’s beautiful, Lenny.”

“Hmm,” he hummed in agreement, or for a lack of something to say. Maybe he didn’t understand Mick’s need for fire, but he wasn’t going to try to stop it. He’d actually gone and done all this for his release day. Is this what made them soulmates? The marks on their arms were just there to make it official.

It was only after the fire started to die down and they pulled their hands away from each other to head back to the bus stop that Mick realized they'd never lined up their soulmarks like that. They usually gripped each other's forearms and were facing each other, not holding hands.

They stopped at the bus stop and Len pulled back his sleeve so he could look at his watch. He sighed and pulled his sleeve back down. “I’ve gotta get back before the asshole comes to…” He looked up and met Mick’s eyes. “See you Friday?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

Len nodded. “Good.” He looked back down the road, probably looking for the bus.

“Len.”

Len turned to look back at him. At some point, his hood had fallen back. Probably while they’d been inside looking at the fire. Mick carefully took his face in his hands, mindful of the bruises. Len's eyes flared wide briefly, but then they closed when Mick leaned down to kiss him long and hard. His hand gripped the front of Mick’s jacket as he leaned up into the kiss.

Mick pulled back after a moment and let his hands fall to his sides. Len looked at him, and Mick was pleased to see his lips were slightly swollen and his face was redder than before. He carefully pulled his hood back over his head as a bus approached.

“I’ll see you on Friday, Mick.” Even under the hood, Len’s smirk was still visible. He gave one short wave as he stepped onto the bus, and without another word, he was gone.

It was only then that Mick realized he was out in the middle of nowhere and now had to find his way back to the foster family he hadn’t seen in months. Well, it could be worse. He could still be in juvie without Len. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a sap. I'm the sappiest sap that ever sapped. So I love this scene.


	5. Chapter 5

The next Friday, Len arrived at the diner promptly at 4 PM, and the Friday after that, and the Friday after that. It was like he was trying to make up for how late he was that first day.

They didn’t always stay at the diner. Sometimes they wandered around downtown Central. One time they actually went in the museum. Sometimes the itch got so bad that they rushed to the abandoned warehouse so Mick could burn things to his heart’s content. And a few notable weeks, Mick had Len pressed up against a back wall of the museum while he stuck his tongue down his throat.

After several months, more time than they’d spent either together in juvie or separated after, Len handed Mick a slip of paper. It had an address and a phone number on it.

“Just in case,” he said. Mick realized it was his home phone number and address. “If you ever need to reach me. Just be careful of my father.”

As Mick had suspected, after only a few short months, his foster family wanted to get rid of him. Rather than go to social services, he got a job and stayed in a halfway house for a few weeks until he could get a crappy studio apartment in a broken down building, in the shadiest area of town. But nothing really intimidated Mick, so the crappy apartment didn’t bother him. He didn’t take Len there, but he let him know where it was, just in case.

Really, the big thought was that it was getting harder not to drag Len back to his place for not-too-innocent reasons. They made out plenty, and there had been several time where Len would egg him on to do something more. By the time Len turned sixteen, he was stunning. And it was getting harder for Mick to keep his hands off him.

So instead, he got back into crime. He found a crew to run with on the nights he didn’t have work. He was only the muscle, but it still paid better than his legal job.

No matter what, they still met at that diner on Fridays. Len called it “neutral territory.” Probably something about not being found by his father. He was always there every week. There’d only been a few times where he knew he wouldn’t make it cause his father was going to pull him on a job. And sometimes Mick wouldn’t show, but then Len would just stalk him down at his apartment.

And then one Friday in the middle of the summer, Len didn’t show. Mick waited an hour and then headed for his apartment. Len wasn’t there. He’d seen the bruises Lewis Smart left on his son, and he knew one of these days it would land him in the hospital. So before Mick had fully reasoned out the decision, his feet started to take him to the address Len had given him a long time ago. If he found out Lewis had done something to prevent Len from coming…

There was a small park around the corner from the house. Mick cut through it to cut through the block. He would've blown right by if it was actually busy with people. But it was towards the end of the day. Regular families were eating dinner. So he had no trouble seeing the teenager hunched over on one of the park benches with his head hanging low.

Even only seeing the top of his head, Mick recognized Len immediately. He walked over and dropped down onto the bench, which made Len jump about a mile in the air.

“Hey asshole. Where were you?”

Len looked at him and straightened up. “Mick? What are you doing…” he trailed off and his eyes widened. “It’s Friday!”

“What? Did you forget?” Mick spread his arms out along the back of the park bench.

“I… Yeah…” Len ran his hand over the top of his head and looked out towards the playground equipment.

That was when Mick noticed they weren’t alone in the park. A little girl was scrambling over the jungle gym and jumped down the slide. She saw them watching and ran over. She wore a gold dress and her brown hair bounced in messy waves. Mick’s eyes went to the fresh bruise on her arm.

“Lenny!” the little girl called as she ran over.

Mick was surprised to see a genuine smile come to Len’s face. Though it was tired. “Hey, Lis.”

The girl launched herself into Len’s lap and turned to give Mick a scrutinizing look that seemed out of place on a four year old’s face.

“Mick,” Len said slowly as he put his hand on her head, “this is Lisa.”

“Figured that one out on my own,” Mick mumbled. He had, after all, seen pictures. Since Len was determined his father would never find out about his soulmate, Mick actually hadn’t met Len’s baby sister yet, though.

“Mick?” the little girl repeated. The scrutinizing expression disappeared to be replaced by a big smile. “You’re the person my brother’s in love with!”

If it was possible to choke on air, that’s what it looked like Len did. “Lis…” he mumbled, and then met Mick’s eyes. Sure, they’d been together for the better part of a year, but neither of them had ever come out and said anything close to  _ I love you _ . Maybe it was implied with the soulmate thing. But then again, Mick figured there were plenty of soulmates who didn’t love each other.

Lisa crossed her arms and gave Mick her best stern face. “But if you hurt my brother, I’m going to mess you up.”

It sounded just like when Mick had sworn he would hurt anyone in juvie who dared try to cross Len. Mick wondered if Len always inspired that kind of loyalty, or if it was limited to people he let in close, like his soulmate and his sister.

“Noted,” Mick said with a smirk.

Lisa nodded seriously and then scrambled off Len’s lap to go back to the jungle gym.

They both watched her go, and then Mick asked, “What happened?” in a low and dangerous voice

Len sighed and didn’t even try to deny there was a problem. “I was on my way out. She was playing in the living room, and… my father came in. He was angry about something, and drunk.” He ran his hand over the top of his head. Mick had to resist the urge to touch him and pull him into his arms. He knew Len wouldn’t appreciate that.

“He’s never touched Lisa,” Len continued. “I made sure of that. Every time it looked like he was going to, I got between them.” Mick felt the strong lash of anger at that thought, so he wrapped his hand around his lighter to keep from going off. Len pretended not to notice when he pulled it out and started clicking the wheel, but never enough to have a steady flame. “But this time, I couldn’t stop him. He was angry, and Lisa was playing. And then he threw something at her.” Len looked over to his sister. “That’s the bruise on her arm.”

Mick looked over as well. The bruise on Lisa’s arm wasn’t the right size for a punch, anyway. He’d seen enough of those bruises on Len’s skin to know how Lewis liked to hit.

“She started to cry and he started to yell and threaten her. The only thing I could think to do was grab her and get her out of there.” Len rested both elbows on his thighs and slid his hands over his face and up through his short hair. “So I brought her here. Figured it would be best just to wait until he passed out before sneaking back.”

As far as excuses went, it was a good one. Mick couldn’t really fault him for not showing up. He clicked the lighter off and reached out to squeeze Len’s knee.

Len turned his head to give him a lopsided grin. “So in light of that, I kind of forgot.”

“Yeah… Figured…” Mick looked back at Lisa. “She seems okay now.”

“She’s good at pretending too.”

Mick glanced at him. Of course even at four, Lisa had to know about the kinds of beatings Lewis gave Len. There was no hiding how much of a monster their father was.

“Hey, kid!” Mick called out towards Lisa. “Want ice cream?”

Mick had come to learn that Len had an insatiable sweet tooth, and that he especially liked ice cream above all else. So he figured if Len’s sister was anything like Len, she’d be jumping at the chance. 

And in fact, Lisa hopped off the jungle gym and ran right over. “Yes, yes, ice cream!” She turned and gave a big puppy-eyed expression to Len. “Can we, Lenny?”

Len gave Mick a curious expression, but then he turned a smile on his sister. “How can I say no?” He pushed himself to his feet. “C’mon.”

“Woohoo!” Lisa actually bounced up and down as she lead the two teenagers out of the park. She seemed to know perfectly well where she was going, and Mick thought he remembered passing an ice cream shop on the way over.

Lisa skipped on ahead of them, so Mick took the chance to grab Len’s right arm. He slid his fingers under the sleeve of the inexplicable long-sleeved shirt he wore even though it was the middle of summer, and found his soulmark.

Len shuddered slightly at the contact and turned his face up to look at Mick. So Mick took the opportunity to wrap his other hand around the nape of Len’s neck and draw him into one quick, hard kiss. Most of the time, he found it hard just to keep his hands off Len. But he sure as hell didn’t want to go to jail for getting it on with his underage soulmate. The next two years until Len turned eighteen were going to be brutal.

“Ew. Is that all you guys do?” Lisa’s voice broke through Mick’s heat-filled thoughts. He dropped his hands and turned to see Lisa was standing in front of the ice cream shop with her arms crossed.

“Not all,” Len said with a smirk. He moved away from Mick and put his hand on Lisa’s shoulder to turn her around and push her into the shop.

Mick followed and stuck his hands back in his pockets so he could wrap his hand around his lighter again. He was going to have to light something on fire soon. Len would be down to wander off and do that, but he probably didn’t want to take his impressionable little sister.

Lisa pressed her face up to the glass case to look at the various flavors of ice cream. “Can I try that one?” she kept asking the teeanger working behind the counter. He patiently put up with it and handed her a tiny spoon with a different flavor each time. She’d have a taste of the whole freezer if they let her keep going like that. Len only smirked and watched. It seemed like there were some tricks Lisa was already starting to learn from her brother.

“Look, kid, are you actually going to get a scoop?” the guy finally asked.

Lisa turned and looked up at Len with big eyes. Len pulled out his wallet, but then tried really hard not to frown at the contents. “Maybe just one…”

Before he could finish, Mick stepped up to him and said, “Get whatever you want kid. My treat.”

Len gave him a questioning look, but Lisa immediately listed off three flavors of ice cream and got her hands on a towering three-scoop cone.

“She is going to be bouncing off the walls,” Len said as they walked out of the shop a few minutes later. Lisa’s face was already a mess from all the ice cream. Mick handed Len his own scoop of vanilla while he had chocolate ice cream himself. “You didn’t have to do this,” Len said quickly as he stuck the small spoon into his ice cream.

“It’s pay day. And I’m the one with a job.”

“Yeah, but Lisa is my sister.”

“Exactly. People and things important to you are automatically important to me. Money’s meant to be spent, Lenny. Why not spend it on something you want?”

Len gave Mick a slightly amused smirk. “Hence why we both acquire it illegally?”

“Takes too long to get it the legal way.” Mick finished off his ice cream and dumped the cup in a trashcan they passed on the way to wherever they were going. Now that Mick had nothing in his hands, they started to shake. He stuck them in his pockets quickly and gripped his lighter. But not before Len could see.

Len’s eyes narrowed and dropped to his hands. He tossed the rest of his ice cream and stopped in front of Mick. “How bad is it?”

“I’ll be good for another day. Probably.”

“Fuck, Mick. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’ve got it, Lenny.” Without meaning to, he pulled out his lighter and started to flick it on and off. “I can go a day without burning something down.”

“Sure about that?” Len asked levelly. He took Mick’s other arm and slid his fingers over his soulmark. “If you gotta find something to burn…”

“What are you two doing?” Lisa asked.

Mick looked over Len’s shoulder to see she had finished her ice cream and had her hands planted on her hips as she stood watching them. Of course, most of the ice cream was all over her face. So Len sighed and pulled away from Mick so he could go over to kneel down in front of her and wipe the mess off her face with the paper napkins he’d stuffed in his pockets before they left the shop. 

“Next time, try eating the ice cream.”

“I did eat it!”

“You got half of it on your face.”

Lisa stuck her tongue out at her brother, so Len pinched it between his fingers. Lisa yelped and closed her mouth quickly. Len took the opportunity to wipe the rest of the ice cream off her face, and smirked lightly as he did so. He straightened up to toss the napkins in the trash and turned back to Mick. Lisa reached out and snagged Len’s hand as Len stood looking at him.

“Mick.”

“I’m okay. We can’t do anything now, anyway.” Mick’s eyes went to Lisa.

Len sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. He looked down at Lisa and seemed to contemplate for a moment before saying, “You want to see something cool, Lis?”

“Sure!” she said enthusiastically. 

“Len…” Mick said slowly.

“Trust me, this won’t be the worst thing she’s seen,” Len threw over his shoulder at him as he started to lead the way to a different place. Not that they’d had a destination in mind when they’d left the ice cream shop.

Mick couldn’t really think of anything to do but follow, so he did. Lisa skipped along and swung her brother’s hand, content to follow him. Mick kept flicking the wheel of his lighter, spending longer and longer looking at the flames. 

Len lead them back to the park, but a different section, with picnic tables. Len lifted Lisa up to set her on top of the picnic table and she happily kicked her feet as she watched them. Mick was about to ask what Len was doing, but he stopped by one of the gross public trashcans and fetched a newspaper from the bottom. He tossed it on top of an old bolted-down barbeque that probably hadn’t been used in years and waved his hand at it.

“Have at,” he said as he went dumpster-diving for more stuff.

Mick looked at him curiously, but didn’t need to be told twice. In a pinch, paper would always do to create a fire. Even if other things created prettier flames. But then again, newsprint did tend to burn much differently from regular paper. He lit the corner of the newspaper with his lighter and watched the thing catch and curl up in seconds.

Len tossed more trash on the table and Mick took his time lighting each new thing on fire and adding it to the ashes of the previous thing. He was so zeroed in on the fire, that he barely noticed how Lisa tilted her head and watched him. It was the same calculating expression Len had given him the first time he’d watched Mick burn something in juvie. 

Len finished rummaging for garbage and sat up on the table next to his sister. “Mick likes fire,” he said by way of explanation.

“Why?” Lisa asked.

“Look at it,” Mick said, before Len could try to explain. “It’s beautiful. Nothing is as alive as fire. Nothing is more godlike. Fire is life and judgement and death, all in one.” He raised his hand and held it close to the flames. Not close enough to burn, but close enough to feel the sting of heat. “It doesn’t care if you’re a good citizen or a criminal. It burns everything the same.”

Lisa looked up at Len curiously, but Len just smiled lightly and shook his head. “You’ve seen the people who go to church every Sunday and say Jesus will save them?”

Lisa wrinkled her nose. “Daddy says they’re idiots and suckers.”

Len shrugged. He probably didn’t want to agree with his father. “What they do, it’s called worship.” Len looked over at Mick. “They view their god as all-powerful, something deserving of respect, something to be admired and feared.” A small smile curved his lips. “That’s what the fire is like for Mick. Only it’s better, cause he’s not being told to do it or what to believe by some random old man.”

Mick smirked lightly and moved his palm over the heat coming off the fire. He’d never thought of it like that, but hearing Len describe his obsession with fire as a religious experience sounded right. When Len put it that way, it sounded sacred, not psychotic.

“Huh.” Lisa planted her chin in her palms. “I don’t get it.”

Len laughed and wrapped his arm around his sister. “That’s okay.”

Mick heard them continue to murmur to each other in soft conversation as he moved around the barbeque and slowly burned every piece of trash Len had found down to ashes. He only noticed how dark it had gotten once the last of the flames died down.

Mick turned to look back at the Snart siblings and found Lisa had fallen asleep with her head against Len’s shoulder. Len gave him a small smile when he caught his eye.

“It’s late,” Mick said.

“Yeah,” Len agreed quietly. He looked down at Lisa and squeezed her a little tighter. “We should head back…”

“You can’t.”

Len looked up to meet his eyes again and then sighed. “Mick…”

“That asshole hurt Lisa this time. How long are you going to keep going back there?”

“We don’t have any other option.” Len maneuvered Lisa into his lap and carefully slid off the bench with her in his arms. He readjusted her to his hip, and in her sleep, Lisa wrapped her little arms around Len’s neck. “He’s made it very clear he’d get one of his old bent cop buddies to slap me with kidnapping if I ever tried to take Lisa and run.” Len shook his head. “And I’m not old enough that social services would ever legally let me be her guardian. Not for several years.”

Mick crossed his arms as Len came to stand in front of him. “There's gotta be something.”

“Trust me, I’ve been thinking about this for years. Right now, there’s nothing I can do but try to keep Lisa away from the worst of it.” He looked down at her. “Someday, I’ll get us out of there, though.”

Mick grunted. “You won’t have to do it alone.”

Len looked back up at him. In the dying light, his blue eyes looked especially bright. After a moment, he smiled tiredly. “Thanks, Mick.” He readjusted Lisa on his hip and headed for the park exit. “C’mon.”

They walked away from the park silently. As they went, street lights started to come on. Len didn’t try to dismiss Mick, and Mick followed Len without questioning.

They came to a stop in front of a house on a suburban street. Mick realized it was the address Len had given him months and months ago. It was an ordinary, if slightly run-down, looking house. There was an old, beat-up car in the driveway.

Len sighed and carefully shifted Lisa, who was still asleep, to his other hip. “You should go. He’s probably passed out drunk, but just in case…”

Mick glanced at the house. “Sure you don’t want me to go light the bastard on fire?”

Len smirked lightly. “Maybe some other time.” He glanced back at the house. “Well, see you next week. Night, Mick.”

Mick didn’t even say anything this time. Before Len had a chance to turn away, Mick grabbed his arm in one hand, and used the other to firmly hold the back of Len’s neck so he could tip his head back and kiss him hard. Right over the head of Len’s little sister. She shifted at the sudden movement, but otherwise didn’t wake up. 

Len was caught completely off guard, but he quickly caught up to what was going on. The position was awkward since he still had a sleeping four year old in his arms. He moved her more to one side so he could lean up into the kiss and tangle Mick’s tongue with his own.

When they parted, Len’s face was flushed and he was a little breathless. But that didn’t stop him from saying, “We really shouldn’t have done that in front of my house. If my father saw…”

“If your father saw, I doubt he would’ve let us keep going that long.” Mick stroked his fingers along the back of Len’s neck.

Len closed his eyes and leaned into the caress. “Going on that long only gave him more time to catch us.”

“You seriously need to loosen up, Snart.”

Len opened his eyes so he could look up at Mick. “Sounds like something you could help with.”

In that moment, Mick wanted nothing better than to drag Len back to his apartment and completely take him apart until he was screaming Mick’s name. He couldn’t help but imagine how perfect Len would look sprawled out on his bed, blissed out and fucked out. He opened his mouth to suggest they go to his place and do all that, but then Lisa shifted in Len’s arms.

They both looked down at her and both seemed to remember the events of earlier that day that had lead to them standing here like this. Len sighed and carefully smoothed back Lisa’s hair. Mick finally pulled his hand back.

“I’ll see you next week, Len,” he said as he took a step back.

Len nodded. After a moment, he turned to walk up to the house. He stopped in front of the door to look back at Mick, but then he very carefully and quietly unlocked and opened the door.

Mick stayed on the sidewalk outside the house for a few minutes after Len disappeared inside, straining his ears for the sounds of shouting or violence. But he figured Len had been right and his father was passed out drunk. Which meant Len and Lisa were probably safe for the night. Satisfied with that verdict, he shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to make his way home. Though he knew he’d be thinking about all the things he wanted to do to Len all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally get to meet Lisa. I had a lot of fun with little kid Lisa.
> 
> Oh, and I almost forgot to thank you all for all the nice comments. I might not respond, but I read them all. They give me such warm fuzzies to see how much you guys like the fic.


	6. Chapter 6

“So I may have a job for you,” Mick said one day, out of the freaking blue.

“What?” Len said as he looked up from the plan for Lewis’s next heist.

Mick lounged out on his ratty old couch and lifted his beer to his lips. He had the double benefit of already looking twenty-one, and buying alcohol at a liquor store that just didn’t care.

“You’re always complaining about the plans your old man comes up with.”

“Because they’re bullshit with about a fifty percent success rate.” Len smoothed out the papers spread out on Mick’s coffee table. He sat up from where he’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“Right. So put that brain of yours to better use.”

Len titled his head and looked over at Mick. “What’s the job?”

“The crew I’ve been running with just lost their lock-picker. Something about getting arrested for beating up his girl.” Mick frowned and took another drink from his beer.

Len squeezed his hand into a fist on top of the table. “Okay.”

“So they’re looking for a new guy for a job this weekend.”

“Anyone can pick locks.”

“Not anyone can pick locks and make plans. Boss needs help with the plan to get in.”

Len titled his head and moved up off the floor to sit on the couch beside Mick. “What are you hitting?”

“Jewelry store.”

Len frowned. “For the jewelry, I assume. Which means you’re going to have to fence it off after.”

“He says he’s got a guy for that. Just waiting for a when and where to hand off the goods. Willing to pay a lot for what this store has.”

Len tapped his fingers against the outside of Mick’s thigh. “You know the location?”

“No.” Mick finished off his beer. “Boss hasn’t bothered to tell the muscle details like that.”

“Hmm…” Len’s fingers continued to tap against Mick’s leg, but not in a sensual way. It helped him think. “Probably keeping it to himself then. Means he know what he’s doing.” 

Mick caught Len’s wrist and turned it over so he could see the soulmark on the inside of his wrist. He gently ran the pad of his thumb over the mark and Len shivered at the contact. “So does that mean you’re interested?”

Asking a question while he had his finger pressed to Len’s soulmark was really not fair, Len thought. He knew Len would pretty much agree to anything like that. So, being the smartass he was, he asked instead, “Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Fewer jobs you do with your father, the better.”

“Don’t need you to save me, Mick.”

“Not saving. Offering another option.”

“Fine. Set it up. If I can get money he doesn’t know about, then I can get Lis and me out of there faster.”

Mick smirked lightly. Len knew he was letting Len pretend it was all his idea and his plan, even though Mick knew what Len would do with the money. Still with his fingers around Len’s wrist, he tugged him forward into a kiss. 

Len settled comfortably against Mick’s chest and kissed him back slowly. Mick tasted like the cheap beer he’d been drinking, but that was alright. He didn’t know when Mick’d had time to build up a tolerance, or if he just naturally was like that, but it took a lot to get him drunk. Whereas Len’s parents seemed to spend their lives drunk. Len supposed his mother still did, wherever she was. At least Lewis sobered up enough to try and pull a half-assed job every once in awhile.

“Stop thinking so much…” Mick mumbled as he traced his lips along the side of Len’s face. “Can practically hear it.”

Len hummed and slid his hands up and down Mick’s chest. “Can’t just turn off my brain.”

Mick chuckled and latched his teeth onto Len’s earlobe. Len tried really hard not to groan when he did that, but wasn’t quite successful. Which just made Mick chuckle again.

So Len took Mick’s face in his hands and pulled him back to kiss him hard. Without breaking away from the kiss, he readjusted to swing his leg over Mick’s and straddle his hips. It was Mick’s turn to groan when Len ground down into him slowly and carefully.

“Keep going like that…” Mick muttered between kisses. His arm had come up to wrap around Len and trap him against his chest. “And we’re gonna be in trouble…”

“Maybe it’s the kind of trouble I want,” Len said as he tried to grind against Mick again.

But Mick put both hands on Len’s shoulders and pushed him back just enough to stop the contact. “We can’t, Lenny. You’re still underage. I ain’t doing that.”

Len rolled his eyes and groaned in frustration. “It really doesn’t make a difference.”

“Does to me.”

Len sighed and moved off Mick’s lap to go back to his plans. Mick kind of looked like he hadn’t been ready to stop making out yet. But really, if Mick wasn’t willing to just fuck him already, he didn’t want to sit there getting all hot and bothered.

“When’re you doing this thing you’ve been working on for your dad?” Mick asked after a few minutes of quiet.

“Don’t know,” Len said. “Just planning now. So no date set.”

“So it shouldn’t be a problem for you to work this job this weekend.”

“As long he doesn’t find out about it…” But by this point, Len had gotten really good at making sure there were a lot of things Lewis never found out about.

The following day, Mick brought Len to the old office building where his crew met up. The boss was immediately impressed with Len when he called out their existing plan of breaking into the jewelry store as asinine because even an idiot knew (here, he thought of his father) that you couldn’t just pick the lock; a silent alarm would go off and cops would be on them in three minutes and twenty-eight seconds. When asked for an alternative solution, Len suggested rewiring the security system to keep the alarm from going off. That way, they’d be able to seal to their hearts’ content. 

“This, I’m assuming, is a thing you can do?”

Len smirked, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mick grinning. “This,” he drawled, “is a a thing I can do.” He also had a few comments to make about the getaway. Not bad for a seventeen year old.

Since this boss actually took his advice, and let him do his thing, the night of the burglary went off without a hitch. They were in and out in less than thirty minutes. Len had made sure there weren’t secondary alarms on the glass cases before he stepped back and let Mick and the other guy hired as muscle, Dan or something, smash them to bits.

“Not as good as watching something burn,” Mick mumbled to him as he started to gather diamonds and stuff them in a bag, “but shattering glass is still satisfying.”

Len was not exempt from the task of loading up duffel bags with various high-priced trinkets. But while the others had their backs turned, he put his pick-pocket skills to work and palmed a small gold charm. He hid it in the inside pocket of his jacket without anyone the wiser. And anyway, it was worth less than a hundred dollars, so no one would miss it.

The boss’s buyer was waiting for them when they got back to the office building. Len frowned, but lagged behind the others. He would have set up neutral ground for the exchange, but that was just him.

“You have my jewels?” the guy asked. He wore a slick, pin-striped suit that screamed shady business man. 

“Yeah,” the boss said. He nodded his head and Mick and Dan dropped the duffel bags at the buyer’s feet. 

The buyer had his own muscle, two guys even bigger than Mick. He didn’t bother to open the duffel bags himself, but let them do it and go through the jewels inside. He took his time looking at each of the pieces his guys showed him. Finally, he straightened up and fixed his cuffs. “Fifty.”

“Fifty?” the boss repeated in shock. “We agreed on at least a hundred!” He took a step forward, and in response, the buyer’s two bodyguards blocked his path and crossed their arms.

“I have to take these out of town to sell. Probably go all the way to Metropolis or Gotham. Which is inconvenient to me. Therefore, fifty.” He stared at the boss, daring him to argue again.

Seeing his own much smaller take decrease significantly before his eyes, Len took a step forward and said in as carefree of a drawl as he could manage, “Except you’re not the only buyer in the city. I can name at least half a dozen would would pay much more for this haul.”

The boss turned and gave him an incredulous look, but the buyer only sneered. “No one will touch something so easily linked to a jewelry store break-in.”

“Roscoe would. Morris would,” Len said calmly. He straightened out the gloves on his hands. While he’d never had the chance to try these tactics on anyone, he had seen plenty of people pull them over on his father.

“Morris would never be able to sell!”

“Says you.” Len looked up and gave the man a steely-eyed gaze. The others in the room were deathly silent.

The buyer continued to glare, but he crossed his arms and glanced down at the jewels. Everyone knew how much he stood to make on selling them on the black market, and it was way more than a hundred grand. But if they went to a different buyer, he got nothing.

“Fine,” he snapped. “One hundred, as agreed.”

“One thirty,” Len countered. “The break-in won’t be discovered until morning, which gives you a significant head-start to get out of the city. By the time they start looking for the jewels, you will be long gone. Which will make them easier to sell elsewhere. One thirty.” He smirked. “For our added efficiency.”

“One ten,” the buyer said.

Len crossed his arms and just stared at him.

“Okay. One twenty.”

Len titled his head slightly, as if he was considering, and then said, “Deal.”

The buyer nodded to one of his guards and the guy retrieved a metal briefcase. The buyer entered a code and clicked open the latches. Len didn’t think he’d ever seen so much money in one place in his life. But he made sure to school his expression. His father has certainly never pulled in so much on a job. The buyer had one of his guards transfer the jewels to different bags and filled one of their duffels with one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in cash. He clicked his case closed again and reset the code.

“Pleasure doing business,” Len drawled.

While his guards gathered the jewels and the case, the buyer stopped to give Len a look. “What’s your name, kid?”

This was it. His moment to start making a name for himself. But it also made this a moment that could get back to his father. Well, Len did like thinking in the long-term. “Snart,” he said. “Leonard Snart.”

He thought maybe the buyer recognized the name, but he didn’t say anything else. “Let’s go!” he barked at his guards. Without another word, they were gone.

There was silence for a moment while everyone processed what exactly had just happened. And then, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone pull one over on Pittman,” Dan, of all people, said. Len didn’t think he’d heard him speak up until that point. 

And then there was a lot of shouting and hollering as the boss rushed to pat him on the back and then rushed to collect up the money. Len tried really hard not to break the guy’s fingers for touching him. But he supposed he could allow him the brief moment of contact. Mick smirked and when Len briefly met his eyes, he was almost surprised at the clear heat and want he could see in them.

Originally, the boss was going to take a third of the cut, which was his right as the one who set the thing up, and the rest would be divided between the other three of them. But Len barely had to open his mouth to argue and the boss added an extra four thousand from his own take for the deal Len got them. They divided their money among the four duffel bags and went their separate ways. 

On his way out, Dan muttered to Len, “If you ever form your own crew, hit me up…”

The boss didn’t hear him, but then he also said, “Next time I’m pulling a job, you’re the first person I’m going to call.” He hoisted his duffel onto his shoulder and reached out like he was going to pat Len’s arm again. But he must’ve decided against it at the warning look Len gave him.

“I’m sure,” he said calmly and stepped out of the guy’s way to let him leave.

He was in the process of turning back around to say something to Mick when he felt his feet leave the floor and his back press up against the closest wall. Before Len could even draw breath to protest, Mick covered his mouth with his own and kissed him like he was trying to suck out his soul. His hands held Len’s hips and he used his own body to keep Len hoisted up against the wall. When Mick pulled back enough to sink his teeth into Len’s lower lip, Len couldn’t help but moan. He wrapped his legs around Mick’s waist to keep from slipping, and scraped one hand up his back while the other wrapped around his shoulders.

Mick moved to lick and suck and bite at his neck, and was none too gentle about it. When his lips and teeth weren’t occupied with leaving marks on Len’s skin, he muttered, “So fucking hot… Gonna be god damned incredible when you’re the boss…”

Len could only let his head fall back against the wall and cling to Mick with how he had his mouth all over his face and neck. He tightened his legs around Mick’s waist, trying to pull his body in closer. While Mick was busy leaving marks, Len managed to get his hand inside his shirt and ghosted his fingers along the hard muscles of his back before dropping them down to the waistband of his pants.

“You have no idea all the things I want to do to you…” Mick continued to mutter. He sucked particularly hard on a bruise he had already created with his teeth and Len slid his eyes closed and moaned loudly.

“Thought you said I’m the one who talks too much,” he said quietly. “Stop talking it up, Mick, and just do it.” With his hand on the back of Mick’s head, he pulled him up to kiss him hard again. He slid a finger below the waistband of Mick’s pants and swallowed his groans.

A sound just outside the door made them both stop dead. They pulled back and tried to breathe as shallowly as possible to keep from making any more noises. But Mick still had Len pressed against the wall, and Len still had his legs around Mick’s waist. Silently, Len jerked his head and Mick let him down. Mick retrieved the crowbar they’d used in the break-in, and ducked out the door quickly to make sure no one was spying on them.

He came back a second later and dropped the crowbar on his duffel bag of money. “Just a fucking rat.”

Len sighed and ran his hand over the top of his head. “Fuck. That could have been bad. If someone saw us…”

“They didn’t,” Mick said quickly.

“If it got back to my father…”

“That’s the thing you’re most worried about him finding out?” Mick almost looked like he was offended.

Len waved his hand around the room. “All of this!” He sighed and held up his hands. “It’s fine. We’re fine.” He turned his smirk on Mick. “Next time wait until we’re some place a little more private before you practically fuck me against the wall.”

Mick grunted, but he did smirk as well. “No promises, snowflake.” 

Len looked over at the door, and then down at the two duffel bags. The adrenaline spike from almost being caught wasn’t a turn-on for him, and had efficiently ruined the mood. Besides, if he wasn’t back before his father woke up, he would be in so much shit. 

“I should go…” he said.

Mick looked like he wanted to protest, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he walked back over while stripping off the gloves he hadn’t bothered to remove before pressing Len against the wall earlier. He took Len’s right arm and slid up his sleeve so he could press his fingers into Len’s soulmark, then he brought his arm up so he could press his lips into it. Len was so shocked both by the charge from the contact, and by the action, that he didn't say anything. And then Mick growled against his skin, so Len could feel the vibrations through his mark, “When you turn eighteen, I am going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to see straight for a week.”

That seemed more like Mick. Len smirked and pulled his hand back enough that he could twist it around and grab Mick’s forearm until their soulmarks lined up. “I am looking forward to it.”

They parted ways before they went back to their actions right there in that office again. Len had become an expert at sneaking into his house without making a sound. It was partially a skill learned from being a thief, and partially learned from getting around his father. Though his father did tend to be a heavy sleeper with all the alcohol he normally drank.

Automatically, Len poked his head into Lisa’s room to check on her. Something about that must’ve woken her up because she lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. “Lenny…?”

Len shushed her and moved into the bedroom, closing her door behind him. “Yeah.”

Lisa sat up and yawned. “Where’d you go?” she asked quietly. She’d learned that if Len was being quiet, she had to be quiet otherwise bad things could happen.

“Just out.” He sat down on the bed next to her. “Got a present for you.”

Lisa’s eyes widened and she bounced over to him. “Really? For me?”

Len nodded and retrieved the gold charm from his jacket pocket. It was a small, flat piece of heart-shaped gold on a simple metal chain. “I know how much you like gold.”

“It’s so pretty!” Lisa tried to say as quietly as possible. 

Len leaned forward and carefully clasped the chain around her neck. “It’s for you.”

Lisa held up the charm in her little hands and looked at it in the street light leaking through her window. “I love gold…”

“I know you do.” He ruffled her bed-mussed hair. “But you have to promise to keep it hidden. It’ll be our little secret, okay?” Len leaned his head down to make sure Lisa was looking him in the eye.

She nodded eagerly. “Okay, Lenny. I promise.” She pulled back the neck of her nightgown and dropped the charm down it so it was hidden.

“Good girl.” Len touched her hair and brought her head forward to kiss her forehead. “Get back to sleep.” 

She nodded and snuggled back down in her blankets. Len left the bedroom just as quietly as he’d walked into the house. He paused by his father’s bedroom door, just to make sure he was still asleep. And then he went to pass out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for all the comments and kudos!


	7. Chapter 7

The boss hadn’t been lying. The first person he called for his next job was Len. And Len made sure the guy still knew he had to include Mick as muscle. Mick was ecstatic when he got to light something on fire for the job. It apparently hadn’t been the first time. So he was already gaining a reputation as a pyromaniac. And Len was gaining a reputation as more than just a pick-pocket.

Which meant at some point his father was going to learn about his extracurricular activities. He still allowed his father to drag him on jobs, if grudgingly. It was more about keeping him appeased for Lisa’s sake than anything. As soon as he turned eighteen, he was out of there. And then he was going to do everything in his power to get Lisa out too.

To that end, he had several stashes around the city for the scores he was collecting. Mick tended to spend a lot of his and keep the rest hidden in a safe house somewhere. Probably just in case a fire started in his apartment. He didn’t talk about it much, but Len knew accidentally burning down his house was a real concern he couldn’t shake.

Len almost thought he’d be able to just skate by, with his father none the wiser. But then the bank heist happened. Len didn’t think to question the boss's desire to turn over a bank, even though it was different than their other jobs. He should have. Because then he would have noticed all the other unusual things about it. What he thought would be a normal bank robbery descended into a firefight. And he meant that literally. They only got away because Mick managed to make a Molotov cocktail and hurl it at their attackers.

“What the fuck was that?” Mick growled once they were in the getaway vehicle. The boss sat in the back, silently counting the money they had managed to grab. The other two people in the crew were equally quiet. Len had never heard of or seen them before, but it almost seemed like their boss was nervous of them.

Len pressed his hand into his side, where he’d received a nasty flesh wound. It wasn’t any worse than what his father did, but it still hurt. Mick’s eyes kept darting over to him as he drove away at just over the legally acceptable limit.

“We got the money. That’s all that matters,” the boss finally said.

“Hell it is.” Mick turned to glare into the back seat.

“Hey! You work for me. Remember?” The boss glared right back at him.

“Just drive, Mick,” Len said. He was going for his normal carefree drawl. But it came out a bit strained due to the pain from his injury.

Mick glanced at him again, but didn’t say anything else until they got to the safe house. While the others went straight in, Mick lingered, hovering by Len as he carefully got out of the car.

“'m okay…” Len mumbled.

“You’re still bleeding.”

“First aid can wait til we get our share.” He lead the way inside, trying not to show the pain he was feeling.

By the time they got up to the abandoned office, the two big guys had cleared off. Len narrowed his eyes suspiciously. But the boss just waved a wad of money at him.

“Your take.”

Len grabbed it and flipped through the bills. “This is it? I know we grabbed way more.” Mick also frowned down at his cut. One didn’t rob a bank for a couple hundred each.

“We’d have gotten more if we hadn’t been attacked.” The boss refused to meet their eyes as he packed up his own cut. “Next time, there’ll be a better plan.” He left before they could argue anymore.

“If there is a next time…” Len mumbled. He crossed his arms, and then realized how bad of an idea that was when he hissed in pain.

“C’mon, Snart,” Mick said. He grabbed Len’s arm and steered him to the exit. The boss had taken care of the getaway car, so they had to walk back to Mick’s apartment. Their line of work wasn’t exactly accident-free. So Mick had a first aid kit for just this eventuality. And there had been a few times he’d needed to patch Len up not from a job, but from his father.

Len dropped down onto the couch carefully and peeled off his jacket. He lifted the edge of his shirt, which had a growing blood stain. The wound underneath luckily wasn’t that big, or that deep.

“Take off your shirt,” Mick instructed.

“What happened to me being jailbait?” Len teased.

“Very funny,” Mick said in a monotone. He sat down on the coffee table, which creaked under the weight, with the first aid kit in his hands. “It’s covered in blood anyway. Might as well get rid of it.”

Len still hesitated. He wore long-sleeve shirts for a reason. His father had left too many scars on his body. He couldn’t even claim they were battle wounds from dangerous jobs. His hands lingered on the lower hem of his shirt.

As if he was reading Len’s mind, Mick said, “It’s just me, Lenny.”

Len sighed and carefully pulled his shirt over his head. He tossed it onto the coffee table next to Mick. “Might as well burn that. If my father sees bloody clothes, he’s going to ask questions.”

Mick’s eyes lit up at the mention of burning something. But then he got a good look at Len’s torso.

“Don’t,” Len said when Mick opened his mouth to make a comment. “Just don’t.” 

So Mick didn’t say anything about the scars. “Lift your arm,” he said. 

Len twisted slightly so his uninjured side was against the couch and he rested his arms across the back of the couch. Mick grunted and leaned forward to start cleaning the wound. Len had had his fair share of injuries over his lifetime, so the sting of rubbing alcohol didn’t get a reaction out of him. Mick covered the cleaned wound with a large bandage, being careful to smooth down the medical tape so it wouldn’t come off.

But he didn’t immediately pull his hand back. Instead, his calloused fingers slid down to Len’s hip, where a particularly nasty keloid scar traced the edge of his waistband. He ran his thumb over the puffy scar tissue gently. Len couldn’t really feel it, but he watched. 

“Broken bottle,” he said quietly. “Couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.”

Mick growled low under his breath. He didn’t need to say anything. There was nothing to say. Mick would just threaten to kill Lewis. Len would remind him if Lewis was dead, Lisa would go into foster care, and look how that had turned out for Mick.

Mick squeezed his hip briefly, and then moved his hand up his chest, never quite leaving Len’s bare skin, to slide along the side of his neck. He leaned forward more in order to kiss him. Len moved his hands off the couch to loosely hold the front of Mick’s jacket. There was no urgency behind the kiss, which was quite unusual for them now. Not that it was their fault. Teenage hormones were a bitch.

Mick pulled back after a bit and rested his forehead against Len’s bare shoulder. “I love you, Lenny. Don’t forget that.”

Len reached up to run his fingers through Mick’s short hair. “I won’t. I love you too.”

He felt Mick smile against his skin. “You gonna stay here tonight?”

“Can’t. You know I can’t, Mick.”

Mick sighed and straightened up. “I know. But worth a shot.” He tilted his head slightly and his eyes gave Len quite an obvious once-over. Len could practically feel the heat coming off that gaze.

“Since you’re letting me burn your bloody shirt, lemme see if I’ve got something small enough for you to wear.” He finally tore his eyes off Len and went to rummage through an unorganized dresser. 

He did find him a T-Shirt to wear. Len was careful of the patched-up injury. With his jacket zipped up, it was hard to tell, anyway. Thankfully, the blood hadn’t gotten through to his jacket yet. They only made out for a few minutes before Len finally left.

 

Len thought that would be the last of that. Lewis didn’t even notice Len was injured or the different clothes. After a few days, the wound started to heal up, and Len started to put the whole bank fiasco behind him. If he’d needed stitches, he would have been in trouble, so he was lucky.

He was still careful of his side, and so especially tried to stay out of Lewis’s way while he was healing. Which was why he was surprised to see Lewis waiting for him when he got home from dropping Lisa off at her ice skating practice.

Lewis stood in the entrance way with his arms crossed. When Len walked in, he reached around him and locked the door. Which was definitely not a good sign.

Len stayed silent while he waited for his father to make some kind of move. He wasn’t drunk, and that troubled Len more than anything.

Len clasped his hands in front of himself and subtly slid his thumb inside the cuff of his jacket so he could press it to his soulmark. It was better when Mick did it, but the action still kept him calm, level.

“So I hear one of Santini's banks was hit,” Lewis started. “And I think only an idiot would be stupid enough to hit the mafia. Then it turns out it was planned by a guy who owed the Mexican Cartel money. So they figured two birds, one stone.”

Len made his face even more blank than it had been before. That certainly explained a lot. Why there’d been that level of security. Why he’d never seen the other two guys the boss used before. Why they got such a small cut when he knew they’d gotten away with more. Rather than say anything, he waited for Lewis to get to his point.

“And then I hear this rumor that a Snart was running with this crew. Obviously it wasn’t me, I tell ‘em. And they say, no, the Snart  _ kid _ .” He gave Len a hard look, but Len didn’t back down from it. His father no longer towered over him. In fact, Len had a few inches on him.

“But that can’t be right,” he continued, in the same tone of voice. “Cause my kid wouldn’t be stupid enough to cross the Santinis when he knows his old man worked for the Santinis. And he wouldn’t be stupid enough to work with a guy who owed the Cartel money, or with that crazy arsonist Rory.”

That almost got Len to react. He wasn’t aware of the fact that Lewis knew of Mick. But he didn’t know about Mick  _ and _ Len, together. And that was the important part.

“So what have you got to say?” Lewis crossed his arms again.

Len considered for a moment, and then said in a slow drawl, “Seems to me you were talking completely hypothetically.”

“Cut the crap, Leonard.” Lewis glared at his son. “What the hell were you thinking?  _ Were _ you even thinking? Do you know what would happen if the Santinis catch wind of the fact a Snart was involved in that little robbery?”

It was a rhetorical question, so Len stayed quiet.

“They’d come after me. Which I’m sure would please you. But they wouldn’t just come after me.” He jabbed his finger at Len’s chest. “They’d come after you too. And your pyromaniac friend can’t save you from the mob.”

Honestly, Len was more worried about the fact that his father knew he’d been associating with Mick than about the fact some mob might try to kill him. As far as he was concerned, he’d been living with the threat of someone trying to kill him most his life.

Lewis smirked. “But it wouldn’t just be us. They’d want to send a message. They’d kill your sister too.”

“She has nothing to do with it!” The threat against Lisa was what finally broke his resolve.

“She’s a part of this family. So they’d kill her too.”

“If they try…” Len growled in a pretty good imitation of Mick.

“You’ll do what? Take on the mafia?” Before Len had a chance to block, Lewis smacked him on the side of the head hard enough that it made his ears ring and knocked him over.

He was able to catch himself on a side table before he went sprawling to the floor, though. The only way Lewis could get the upper hand on his son anymore was to knock him to the ground. “Just try and hit me again…” Len mumbled as he straightened up.

“You’re a punk. You’ll always be a punk. Think you can act like a big man by going off with your own crew behind my back?” Lewis sneered and grabbed the front of Len’s shirt, dragging him right up into his face. “I made you. Just remember that.”

He shoved Len back and he stumbled back into the closed door. “Get out of my sight. Next time I catch wind of you running a job behind my back, you’re gonna wish the Santinis caught you.”

Len glared back at his father and scrambled his hand behind his back until he found the doorknob and the deadbolt. He didn’t break eye contact until he was outside the house. And he didn’t stop running until he was several blocks away.

When he finally stopped, he was breathing hard and had to bend over with his hands braced on his knees to catch his breath. He couldn’t believe how easily his father could get under his skin while barely touching him. He felt so weak and useless.

Len straightened up and weighed his options. He couldn’t go home for several hours. It would probably be best to wait until later that night, just in case his father decided to start drinking and wanted to go for another round against Len, this time with more fists. Lisa would be at ice skating for a few hours, so she would be safe there. He’d have to decide what to do when he picked her up, but in the meantime he either went back to the rink to wait it out, or found somewhere else to be.

Before he’d fully consciously made the decision, he found his feet taking him in the direction of Mick’s crappy apartment. Or more, in the direction of the bus stop, where he would take the bus that would let him off near Mick’s crappy apartment. If he was lucky, Mick would even be there. He was fairly certain Mick was working a night shift that night, which meant he shouldn’t be at work.

Mick had never given Len a key (mostly cause he was too lazy and cheap to get a duplicate made), but the locks were so crappy that Len barely even counted it as lock-picking. The quiet drone of the TV met him as he “let” himself in. He barely had the door closed again before he was met with a gun in his face.

Mick lowered the handgun when he saw who it was. He sighed and rubbed at his face, clearly having been rudely awakened from a nap. “Damnit, Lenny. How many times do I have to tell you not to break in here?”

“Then give me a key, asshole. Besides, I always leave the lock intact.” Len tried to calm his breathing back down. His father had never threatened to shoot him. He definitely prefered to use his fists. But having a weapon shoved in his face was not what he needed.

Mick looked at him again and immediately set the gun on the closest surface so he could take a step closer to Len. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Why do you think something happened…?” Len’s voice died halfway through the sentence as he lifted his face to look into Mick’s eyes.

“You’re shaking,” Mick observed, with no judgement in his tone of voice.

Len looked down at his hands to see they were shaking subtly. He squeezed his eyes closed and pressed his fists into his eyelids. “Damnit…” he whispered.

He felt Mick’s fingers against his head and his eyes snapped open immediately. Mick hadn’t moved further into his space; he knew better than to crowd Len. But he did touch the side of his head where his father had hit him earlier. “He do this?” Mick asked. They both knew he wasn’t only asking about the bruise. This one wasn’t about physical injuries. On the grand scale, this was nothing. Which was why Len hadn’t even been aware that Lewis had left a bruise.

Len swallowed thickly and nodded. “He knows about the bank job.”

Mick frowned, but didn’t say anything. His fingers flexed against the side of Len’s head, and he slid his hand down to gently rest against Len’s face. Mick’s hand was rough, but comforting and warm.

“Turns out it was a Santini bank,” he continued in an attempt at his carefree drawl, but it came out strained instead. “That’s why the extra security. Boss owed the Cartel money, so they ordered a hit on the bank. We got caught in the crossfire.”

“Well... it’s not good to get caught between two gangs. But what does that have to do with…”

“Back when my father was a cop, he was on the Santini’s payroll. They still pay him to do odd jobs, and for his connections with the bent cops still working for the CCPD. So if the Santinis find out…”

“Ah. Yeah. Wouldn’t be good.”

“Threatened Lisa too… Said they’d kill her just for being related to us.” Len closed his eyes again. “Almost sounded pleased about it, the bastard. Just because he knew it would hurt me. He’d watch his own innocent kid die just to take a jab at me.”

“Think the Santinis will come after us for the job?”

Len shook his head. “If they were gonna do it, they’d have done it. Probably planning some way to get back at the Cartel. And we are going to stay the hell away from that confrontation.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” There was amusement in Mick’s voice.

Len opened his eyes to look at him again. Mick was looking down at him like… like Len would look at an amazing score. Like he was special, like he was worth something. Len didn’t really think he was worth anything, except he was there to protect his sister from his father. But if Mick saw him that way, that was fine.

Len took a step forward and grabbed the front of Mick’s shirt so he could pull him down into a bruising kiss. He didn’t let up until after he had stuck his tongue down Mick’s throat and his lungs were screaming for oxygen. And only then, he pulled back so he could readjust and wrap his arms around Mick’s neck before going in for another long kiss with too much teeth and tongue.

He couldn’t be crowded, not now. He’d panic. So before Mick had the chance, he was the one who pressed Mick up against the closest wall so he could keep kissing him. Mick let himself be pushed. His arms came around Len’s waist and he hoisted him up against his chest. 

Len sank his teeth into Mick’s lower lip and sucked it into his mouth, and then he trailed his lips along the corner of his mouth, and the side of his face, and along his jaw, until he came back up to kiss him again.

When he came up for air again, he pulled his arms back so he could slide his hands down Mick’s chest until he found the bottom of his T-shirt. He slid the hem up his stomach and let his fingertips brush along those well-sculpted abs. 

“Hey, hey, wait, Len…” Mick said, though it was a much weaker complaint than usual. Len could see the fire in his eyes, and he knew Mick wanted this just as much.

“Don’t,” Len said before he could build up any steam. “I don’t care that according to some justice system, this isn’t legal. Fuck, Mick, half the shit we do isn’t legal. It’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not jailbait. I’m turning eighteen in four months. I’m not going to magically change my mind once I legally become an adult. I know what I want. And right now, I want you to fuck me like you’ve been promising to do for  _ years _ .”

Mick looked at him and then smirked. “Why do you always got to give speeches, Snart? Sometimes I think you just like hearing yourself talk.” He stripped off his T-shirt the rest of the way and then looped his arms around Len’s waist again so he could lift him up. Len immediately locked his legs around Mick’s waist to keep from falling, which had apparently been Mick’s plan, because he carried Len over to his bed that way, where he unceremoniously dropped him.

Len met Mick’s smirk as he scooted himself more up to the center of the bed. “Maybe what I have to say is important.” He hooked his hand around the back of Mick’s neck to pull him down on top of him.

“For the first sentence. The rest is just blah blah blah. You never shut up, Len,” Mick teased as he licked a column up Len’s throat to his ear. He latched his teeth onto the earlobe and Len thought his eyes were going to roll back into his head.

“You only say that… cause you’re never paying attention…” Len tried to continue his normal banter, but it was getting harder to form a coherent sentence with the way Mick’s mouth was on his neck.

He felt Mick’s hands at the front of his jacket and he helped unzip it and pull the thing off, and then it was tossed over the side of the bed. Mick shoved up the long sleeve of Len’s shirt and took Len’s right forearm in his hand so he could bring it up to his lips and lick and bite and suck around the soulmark. Len thought the over-stimulation from that was going to drive him crazy. It was bad enough when Mick touched his soulmark. This was something else.

When he felt Mick’s fingers at his waist pushing up his shirt, he grabbed his wrist in subconscious panic.

“S’okay, Lenny. I’ve got you.”

Len took a deep breath and nodded. He slowly let go of Mick’s hand so he could keep pushing his shirt up. The injury on his side was mostly healed, but still tender. Mick skipped right past it anyway. He knew where that had come from. The other scars and marks on Len’s body were what gave him pause.

Len leaned up so he could get his shirt off, but then he wouldn’t meet Mick’s eyes. He hated his scars. They were reminders of all the times he was too weak to defend himself from his father. All the times his father had beaten him down.

Mick had his own scars, of course. They were mostly shiny patches on his hands and arms from the fire he loved so much. And he’d been in his fair share of fights. But he didn’t care who saw his scars, not like Len did.

Len was surprised when he felt Mick’s mouth against the scar on his hip. And then Mick traced his lips up to another scar over Len’s ribs. He kissed along all the various scars and marks on Len’s chest while his hands rubbed at his side. It was honestly a lot more gentle than Len had ever seen Mick be. And a lot more caring than he deserved.

“Come on, Mick…” Len whispered. He pulled Mick up so he could kiss him hard. Mick braced his hand next to Len’s head on the bed. But Len still felt like he was being covered in the heat coming off Mick’s body.

He dropped his hands down to Mick’s waist and found his belt, which he quickly unbuckled so he could unzip his jeans. Before Mick had a chance to react, Len slid his long fingers into his pants to stroke him.

Mick pulled back from the kiss to groan. He braced his forehead against Len’s shoulder, especially when Len gave him a gentle squeeze. And then he gave him a not-so-gentle squeeze, working his hand up and down Mick’s length as best he could at that angle.

“Fuck, Lenny…” Mick whispered. It almost made Len shiver when he felt the exhale brush along his bare skin.

“That is my intention,” Len drawled. He worked Mick’s pants down his hips so he would have more room to maneuver his hand.

Mick groaned again, and then reached his hand down to grab Len’s wrist and pull it back so he could twist it above Len’s head and pin it to the bed. Len hadn’t meant to use his right hand in the action, but he was right-handed after all. So Mick used the position to rub his thumb along Len’s soulmark. Whatever smart remark Len was going to make died on his lips.

Mick used Len’s subdued position to finish kicking off his pants on his own. He hadn’t been wearing shoes, so it was easy enough for him to get the rest of his clothes off. Mick was certainly not one to be uncomfortable in his own body. He pressed one knee up between Len’s thighs, forcing his legs wider apart. While his touches and caresses against Len’s soulmark were feather-light, Len still rolled his head back against the bed and groaned, especially after Mick put his mouth back on Len’s neck.

“Mick… Mick…” Len gasped out. “Least let me get my clothes off first…”

Mick chuckled against his skin, but did let up on the pressure against his soulmark. He slid his hand down Len’s forearm, before letting him take his arm back so he could use both hands to undo his pants. Mick helped by moving down to get his shoes off. Together, they got Len naked in a matter of seconds.

This time, Len pressed his bare knee up between Mick’s legs as he cupped the side of Mick’s face with one hand, and with the other pushed himself up off the bed. Mick groaned through the kiss and looped his arm around Len’s waist to pull him up against his chest. Len felt tingles travel up and down his skin from how they were pressed flush against each other with no barriers of clothing between them.

Len felt Mick’s hard length against his leg as he slowly slid his thigh between Mick’s, creating the barest amount of friction. He swallowed Mick’s moans and wouldn’t let him pull back from the kiss. Instead, he positioned them so he could carefully roll Mick over so he was on his back, all without breaking the kiss. Mick’s arm stayed around Len’s waist, but he slid his hand down to slide over the curve of his ass.

“Please tell me you have stuff here,” Len said between kisses. “And that you weren’t planning to not get it ‘til I turned eighteen.”

“Why’s everything gotta be about you?” Mick said when he could get a word in edgewise. With the hand that wasn’t stroking Len’s ass, he reached over to a rickety bedside table and yanked open the drawer. He pulled it so hard it came off its track, but Mick didn’t seem to particularly care in that moment. Instead, he grabbed a bottle of lube and a condom, and then left the drawer hanging open.

He didn’t pause or hesitate before dribbling the lube onto his fingers and pressing one into Len. Len squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to tense up at the intrusion. He had to keep reminding himself that he wanted this, wanted Mick, and of course it was going to be awkward at first. Only in pornos was sex not awkward. Mick ran his other hand up and down Len’s chest gently until he relaxed, then he worked in another finger.

This time, it was easier. Len actually pressed into the fingers inside him. Which Mick took as an indication to go deeper. He crooked his fingers and brushed up against Len’s prostate, which made Len drop his mouth open in a low moan, which turned into a stuttered gasp when he tried to stop himself.

Mick smirked. “Like that, do you?” he rumbled quietly. He crooked his fingers again and this time Len couldn’t stop himself from moaning loudly. 

“B-bastard…” he stuttered out when he could catch his breath again. “You going to tease me or you going to fuck me?”

“So demanding…” Mick said as he added a third finger.

Len groaned and leaned forward slightly on the bed. He fisted the sheets in one hand and the other trailed over Mick’s skin, lingering on hardened muscles and old scars. 

“Mick, come on…” Len would not admit that he whined, but it was possible his voice was a bit more high-pitched than usual. 

Mick didn’t give him any warning before pulling his fingers back. Len groaned again at the sudden loss. He opened his eyes when he heard Mick tear open the condom wrapper. He watched in fascination as Mick rolled it down over his very hard cock. When he went for the lube again, Len snatched it up first.

“Let me,” he said. While he would really like to just get to the part where Mick was fucking him, he still took his time slicking Mick up. He moved his hand slowly, languidly, taking special care to run his thumb over the head.

When it was clear Len was moving at his own, unhurried pace, Mick reached down like he was going to grab his wrist again. “You just planning to give me a handjob, Lenny?”

“Just enjoying myself.” Len stopped Mick’s hand before he could pull Len’s wrist back again. Instead, still with his fingers wrapped around Mick’s length, he rose up on his knees slightly so he could position himself above Mick’s cock. He only pulled his hand back once he started to sink down onto Mick.

They both groaned at the action. Mick’s hands want to Len’s hips to steady him as he took care to slowly get himself fully seated on Mick’s cock. Len hadn’t known what he had expected. He’d played with himself a few times before, but it was nothing like actually having Mick inside him. It was only slightly uncomfortable, and that feeling went away when he experimentally rotated his hips.

Mick moaned again and licked his lips. “Fuck, Lenny…” he panted out. His fingers tightened on Len’s hip bones.

Len gazed down at him and moved his hips in the same way again, which elicited another moan out of Mick. Len didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so attractive as Mick stretched out under him with his head arched back and his eyes closed. His skin glistened with sweat and every now and then his tongue would swipe at his dry lips.

Len pulled off slightly and then sank back down, this time angling so the head of Mick’s dick brushed up against his prostate. Len bit his lower lip hard as pleasure rippled through him from the motion. He shakily reached his hand down and found Mick’s left one where it was gripping his hip almost painfully. He pried it off so he could lace their fingers together. Len leaned over slightly and pinned Mick’s arm to the bed beside him so he could press their forearms together. As soon as their soulmarks lined up, both of them moaned loudly again, and Len just barely kept from coming right then and there.

But he didn’t let go of Mick’s hand. He tightened his grip so their soulmarks stayed pressed together as he rocked on top of Mick. Mick’s other hand, which was still on Len’s hip, helped guide the pace, which started slow, but got faster and jerkier the closer they came to climaxing. 

At some point, Len leaned down so he could kiss Mick sloppily. He could barely breathe through the kiss, but he kept going back for more. Mick’s hand left his hip and moved to stroke Len’s dick where it was trapped between their bodies. That was all Len needed to push him over the edge.

He whited-out briefly when he came, which he later felt was a legitimate response from the triple stimulation. When he came to again, he rocked against Mick a few more times to help him come. The cords in Mick’s neck looked like there were going to pop out as he gritted his teeth and titled his head back. Len leaned over to pepper much more gentle kisses along his throat as Mick came back down off his high.

He was sore and over-sensitive, and would have liked nothing better than to collapse on top of Mick. But he knew he would instantly regret that decision once he was covered in his own come. So, carefully, he pulled himself off Mick’s cock. They both sighed at the loss. Since Mick didn’t look like he was about to move any time soon, Len took care of the condom and was the one to fetch a washcloth from the bathroom to clean up the mess. He tossed the thing into the sink and sauntered back over to the bed.

As soon as he was within reach, Mick grabbed his arm and yanked him back down to the bed. He hadn’t moved from the center of the bed, so Len didn’t feel too bad about lying half on top of him. He traced patterns on Mick’s chest until Mick took his forearm gently. He slid his fingers over Len’s soulmark, which felt just as over-sensitive as the rest of his body. So he gave out a little gasp at the contact.

Mick smirked and drew Len’s arm up to his face. He started by sucking on Len’s fingers, and then kissed the center of his palm and over the heel of his hand. Finally, his lips came to the soulmark once more. To Len, it felt like the mark was positively throbbing.

“I don’t think I’m quite ready for another round, and if you keep that up…” Len drawled slowly.

Mick kissed past the soulmark, and finally twisted Len’s hand around so he could grip his forearm to line up their marks. Rather than work him up again, that calmed Len down. He felt peaceful in a way he hadn’t felt since… honestly, Len couldn’t remember ever feeling this at peace. For as long as he could remember, he’d lived with the lingering threat of his father being only over in the next room while he slept. He never felt safe. He never felt at peace. The closest he’d come was in juvie, when Mick had crawled onto his bunk and held him through nightmares. But even there, there was still the threat of being caught. Here, he was content, he was safe. He was  _ happy _ .

“Huh,” Len said out loud.

“Mm?” Mick mumbled. He seemed to be already drifting off.

Len smiled and looked up at him. “Nothing.” He leaned up just enough to press one chaste kiss to his lips, and then he settled back down in Mick’s arms.

 

Len hadn’t meant to drift off. He did know he only had a few hours. But he felt safe and content lying naked in Mick’s arms. So it was a good thing he had such a good internal clock. Because he woke up half an hour before he had to pick Lisa up from ice skating practice. Len blinked and rubbed his eyes. He glanced over at the clock on the nightstand and sighed quietly. Carefully, so he wouldn’t wake Mick, he started to get up.

Or at least, that was the plan. But he was sore from using muscles that hadn’t really been used before, and couldn’t quite bite back the groan that escaped his lips. Mick shifted under him and his hand came up to slide along Len’s bare hip.

“Where’re you going?” Mick slurred.

“Got to get Lisa from ice skating… and probably find something else to do with her for a few hours while my father cools off.” He didn’t get up, though. He let Mick’s hand rub up and down the outside of his thigh.

“Nn…” Mick mumbled. He finally opened his eyes and looked up at Len where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He ran the pad of his thumb in circles around Len’s hip. “Could always bring her back here. You know she’s safe here.”

“To the place where we just had sex? No thanks.” Len trailed his hand up Mick’s bare chest. “Besides, don’t you have a job to get to?”

Mick groaned. “Fuck that job.” He captured Len’s hand and before he knew what was happening, Mick leaned up and flipped Len under him again. “Besides,” Mick’s voice rumbled, low and tantalizing, “would much rather stay here for another round…” He placed gentle kisses down Len’s throat, and Len couldn’t help closing his eyes and tilting his head back.

“Wait, wait… Mick… Gotta get Lisa, remember?”

“How long you got?” Mick asked without stopping what he was doing. His hands brushed up and down Len’s sides.

Len titled his head so he could see the clock. “Twenty-six minutes, now.”

Mick left a trail of open-mouthed kisses down Len’s bare chest, while his hands slid down to squeeze Len’s thighs, and Len was finding it harder and harder to come up with an excuse to leave. But then Mick pulled back so he could look down at Len’s face. 

“Well, I know you always like to be on time. So I guess I’ll let you go.” He pulled back enough that he could smirk down at Len.

Len looked up at him and then grabbed to back of his head to pull him down into a hard, open-mouthed kiss. Mick only chuckled and met the kiss with equal passion. But neither of them made any moves for anything more. So after a minute, Len pulled back.

“Okay, now I really do have to go,” Len said as he shoved Mick’s shoulder up so he could slip out of the bed. Finding all the places he’d tossed his clothes was a chore in and of itself.

Mick sat up on the bed to watch Len get dressed, but he didn’t make any move to retrieve his own clothes, so every now and then Len glanced back to treat himself to the view. 

“You sure it’s a good idea to go back there tonight?” Mick asked as he watched Len.

Len straightened up with one boot in his hand. He had a feeling the other one was on other side of the bed. Mick hadn’t been too considerate when he’d tossed them over his shoulder earlier. “It’s fine,” he said. “My father will have cooled off by then. Besides, I know how to get around my house without being noticed by him.”

“Like you did earlier?”

“He caught me off guard earlier.” Len did indeed find the other boot on the other side of the bed. He sat down on the end of the bed to tug on his boots and lace them up. “That won’t happen again. Not when I’ve got to take care of Lisa.”

“Len,” Mick said from behind him, in a surprisingly soft voice. It made Len turn to look over his shoulder at him. “If you need to, you can take Lisa and stay here. You know that, right? If things are bad, don’t think you have nowhere to go.”

Len smiled. It wasn’t even his usual smirk. It was a normal smile. “I know, Mick. I know.” He leaned over and wrapped his hand around the side of Mick’s neck to kiss him softly. “But don’t worry. We’re gonna be fine.”

While Mick didn’t look convinced, he let Len stand up and grab his jacket off the floor. Before Len pulled it on, he moved back over to the edge of the bed to stand between Mick’s legs. He rolled up his sleeve and carefully took Mick’s forearm so he could line up their soulmarks.

“Thanks for the good time,” Len said, just a bit teasingly. He smirked down at Mick.

Mick leaned up to kiss along Len’s neck. “Sure you don’t want to go another round? Or maybe just come back later…”

“Tempting as that is…” Len drawled, and then he stepped back and dropped Mick’s arm. “It will have to be some other time.” Len shrugged his jacket on and headed for the door.

“Better be another time,” Mick grunted, which just made Len laugh.

“You can bet your ass there will be plenty of more times.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a... very long chapter. I couldn't really find a good place to break it up. (I tend to write in one big block, and then separate it by chapters after the fact.)
> 
> Also, *points up to the tags* so you knew _that_ was coming at some point. And you all have been so patient. So I hope you enjoyed the smut.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter gets pretty violent. There is abuse and homophobic slurs. Basically, Lewis is a complete shit. So heads up if that is hard for you to read.

If the SNAFU of that bank job wasn’t a sign Len needed to break off and form his own crew, he didn’t know what was. He soundly ignored his father’s threat and went behind his back to find new people to run with.

When he told Mick, the only response he got was a grumbled, “About damn time.”

Between the jobs he worked on for his father, and the jobs they did with the old boss, Len had enough contacts that he could make a reasonable start on his own. And if he could start running his own crew, he’d have no trouble getting the hell away from his father when he turned eighteen.

It was through these connections that he caught wind of an offer that piqued his interest. Apparently a famous impressionist painting was on tour and going to stop in Central City Museum for three weeks. There were people on the black market willing to pay a pretty penny for the painting, if someone could manage to free it from captivity.

Not only would the painting have state-of-the art security, but the museum had taken it as an opportunity to revamp their whole security system.

Len didn’t see the circumstances as a deterrent. He saw them as a challenge. So he grabbed blueprints of the museum and all the information he could find on the painting, and staked himself out in one of the abandoned warehouses by the dock.

Mick would come by and keep him company while he worked. Out of the corner of his eye, when he would bother to look up, Len would sometimes catch him lighting stuff on fire. And sometimes Mick would get bored and see how long it took to run his hands all over Len before he finally got distracted enough to give in. They fucked on top of the worktable more than once.

After casing every inch of the museum, and more meticulous planning than even Len considered necessary, he was finally ready to make his move for the painting. Obviously he chose Mick for his crew, along with two other guys who had reps for keeping their cool. Every second, Len expected something to go wrong, for something he hadn’t accounted for, for one of the crew to act unpredictably, for there to be a flaw in the plan.

But two hours after setting out, Len leaned back against his worktable with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles as he stared at the painting, which was propped up against the wall opposite him. Behind him, Mick and the other two members of the crew were toasting to their score with several bottles of alcohol. Len, of course, wasn’t going to celebrate until he had money in hand. But the hard part was over. He knew there were buyers. The thieving, that went off without a hitch. Len’s lip quirked slightly. It was a feat his father could never have pulled off in a million years. And that gave him a deep sense of satisfaction.

Three days later, earning a bigger pay-out than any of them had ever seen in their lives, even after it was split four ways, also helped on the satisfaction front. That night, Len didn’t even try to resist Mick’s suggestion he stay at his cheap apartment for the night. He’d been spending so much time at the warehouse safehouse anyway, that his father wouldn’t notice one more night when he was gone. They barely made it through the door with their money before they were tearing each other’s clothes off, trying not to trip on their way to the bed.

Len almost,  _ almost _ let Mick fuck him on top of a pile of money. But the thought of having to clean that shit up after made him ultimately decide against it. Which wasn’t to say that Mick didn’t find a way to fuck him so hard his eyes rolled back into his head when he came.

After, once Mick was well on his way towards passing out with his arms and legs wrapped around Len as he spooned him from behind, Len’s mind was still working. He was already counting down the days until he turned eighteen and his father could no longer have any legal control over him. He would be out of there so fast, and had already started putting strategies in place to protect Lisa until she turned thirteen and was able to choose her own legal guardian.

While his brain processed plans, he absentmindedly ran his finger round and around the edges of Mick’s soulmark, tracing the circle that surrounded the impossibly delicate snowflake imprinted on his wrist. He outlined each of the six points of the snowflake over and over again. Once his mind finally started to settle down, he turned over his own arm so he could look at the flame on his wrist. 

He’d always thought it was odd that the flame was pointed away from his hand, up his arm, which was why he hadn’t been able to identify it as a flame until Mick had pointed it out. But then, he wasn’t the flame. The flame rose away from his hand because it was coming off the person in front of him, his soulmate. He was the ice, the perfectly symmetrical snowflake on Mick’s wrist. He was order and logic, and Mick was passion, the fire on Len’s wrist barely contained by the circle that surrounded it.

When the mark had first appeared three years ago, when he was first getting to know Mick, he’d thought all soulmates must be the same way. They all must have the same reactions to their soulmarks, to their soulmates. But now he was beginning to think it was more than that. Len and Mick balanced each other in a way he couldn’t imagine any other soulmates did. The perfect intersection of fire and ice. They were going to be absolutely unstoppable and take this world by storm. 

That was the thought he had when he drifted off to sleep with his fingers still pressed into Mick’s soulmark.

 

Len had a rep. People in the criminal underworld were starting to learn the name Leonard Snart, and it wasn’t just as Lewis Snart’s son. Even better than that, he was establishing himself as a much better thief than his father. And if anyone thought about messing with him, they would hear he tended to run with Mick Rory, who was not only an arsonist, but crazy on top of that.

If Lewis caught wind of this, he didn’t show it. Len came and went from his home, and Lewis didn’t try to stop him. He didn’t raise a hand against Len or Lisa. So maybe even he had heard about the reputation Len was gaining. How was that for a nearly eighteen year old?

This time, he wasn’t going to get derailed by a sudden change of plans, like what had happened his last few days in juvie, when he’d been separated from Mick. So he spent long nights reciting his plans to Lisa, his assurances that even when he was gone, he would keep her safe. Everything was in place for his departure. But he should have known Lewis would never let him leave without a fight.

A week before Len’s eighteenth birthday, he came home just after full dark, having spent most the day at his warehouse working on potential jobs. He had long since given up on going to school, especially since his father didn’t care either one way or the other. So he was tired. Otherwise he would have been more careful walking into that house.

“Still going behind my back, Leo?”

Len started violently and turned towards the family room, where he saw his father sitting in his armchair with a beer in his hand. Several more empty beer bottles were scattered across the beaten and dirty coffee table. Len had been in this situation enough times to know this was a very bad sign.

He could turn around and go right back out the front door, avoid the confrontation he knew was coming. But Lisa was upstairs. He could hear her. Len and his father hadn’t yet reached the level of arguing that would frighten her into hiding in silence. And if Len left while his father was angry and unsatisfied, he might take that anger out on Lisa instead. There was no way Len would ever let that happen. So he didn’t retreat.

Instead, he took a few tentative steps into the family room, in an attempt to show his father he wasn’t afraid of him. Lewis rose unsteadily from his chair. Good, if he was already that drunk, he was probably too drunk to do much harm. Len could always take Lisa and hide out at Mick’s place if things got out of hand.

“I asked you a question, boy,” Lewis said before finishing off the bottle in his hand.

“What I do with my own time is my business,” Len said as calmly as he could manage.

“Not if it’s my territory.” Lewis jabbed his finger at his own chest. “My business! You trying to step into my game? I made you!” This time Lewis jabbed his finger at Len. “I own you! You work for  _ me _ .”

He moved closer as he yelled at Len, and Len could smell the cheap beer on his breath. He didn’t feel afraid of his father. He felt disgusted by him. 

“No I don’t,” he said back confidently. For once, he actually felt capable of standing up to his father, rather than taking his shit. “I don’t work for anyone. I’m the boss now. Just ask anyone. I’m leagues better at being a thief than you ever were.”

“What’d you say to me?” Lewis stepped right up into Len’s face. But even at his full height, he was shorter than Len now. 

“I said you’re all washed up. Nothing but a two-bit, petty criminal.” Before Lewis could get another word in edgewise, Len straightened up and continued. “And if you try to come at me, or Lisa, then you’ll see just what powerful friends and connections I have now.” He glared down at his father, and then side-stepped him on his way to the stairs. “Now out of my way.”

“Hey!” Lewis yelled. “I’m not done talking to you, boy!” He snatched Len’s arm and tugged him back from the stairs. “You hear me? You’re still a kid! My kid! And you are going to listen to what I say!”

Len twisted around and tried to wrench his arm out of his father’s grasp, but he held tight. “I’m not a kid!” Len snarled, with his upper lip curled back from his teeth. “You made sure of that a long time ago! And in a week, you’ll have no legal control over me! No way to make your cop buddies drag me back.” He gave his arm another yank. “Now let me  _ go _ !”

Lewis twisted his arm painfully. “You think just cause you’re turning eighteen you’ll be out of my reach?” Lewis actually laughed. It was drunken and maniacal. “There’s no where you can go where I can’t get to you. Not even prison. Not even  _ juvie _ .”

Len stopped trying to yank his arm back and narrowed his eyes at his father. “What?”

“You think I didn’t know what you were up to in there? Your  _ friendship _ with Rory?” Lewis spat out the word like it was something dirty, like it meant something other than the dictionary definition. Len’s heart plummeted into his stomach, and he tried not to show the nervousness on his face. “You think it was a coincidence Maroney’s kid attacked you again right before you got out? But no, you still managed to find and run with the fucking arsonist again.”

“That was years ago,” Len said slowly. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Cause there are  _ rumors _ . You know what they’re saying about you? About my god damned son? You think I’m going to sit here and let my own son be some queer?” His grip tightened on Len’s arm, and he pulled him closer, away from the safety of the stairs or the front door.

Len swallowed thickly. That was one of his most guarded secrets. The only person he’d ever told, or ever shown affection for Mick in front of, was Lisa. And she sure as hell wouldn’t blab to their father about anything Len had done. But Len had been on several jobs with Mick around others. People he knew he couldn’t trust past the completion of the job. Had he slipped? Was he not careful enough? If anyone found out about his actual biggest secret, if his  _ father _ found out about his biggest secret…

Len suddenly wanted nothing more than to wrap his fingers around his soulmark and let the pulse under it calm his mind. He needed the balance of Mick’s mark pressed against his own. The need burned in him like the fire Mick loved so much. And that was when Len became acutely aware of the fact his father had his  _ right _ forearm in a death grip.

“Look, whatever you’ve heard…” he tried to say, but his voice wasn’t as strong as it had been before. He tried to pull his arm back with renewed effort, and this time didn’t even care if he broke his own wrist, as long as he could get his hand back from his father’s hold.

“Rumors are bad enough, Leo. A man is nothing without his reputation.” Lewis frowned as Len tried to pull away. “Stay still!” He pulled down at the same time Len pulled up and just managed to slip out of his grasp. But the end of his cotton sleeve tore right off, exposing Len’s upturned inner wrist.

Len stared down in horror at the soulmark that was clearly visible to both him and his father. He tried to pull his hand back to shelter it against his chest, but Lewis dropped the empty beer bottle he’d still been holding, where it smashed against the wood floor, and snatched the arm in both his hands. 

He had to wrestle Len to pull it away from his body, and since Len wasn’t drunk, it looked like he would have the upper hand. That was until Lewis punched him in the gut, right in the solar plexus. Len coughed and dropped to his knees, but Lewis held onto his arm, one hand around his right hand, and one around his forearm, just under the elbow. He twisted the arm up at a painful angle that pulled at Len’s elbow, but left the soulmark perfectly visible.

“What is this?” Lewis asked in a dangerously low voice. “ _ What the fuck is this? _ ”

“It’s nothing,” Len wheezed, trying to regain his breath. His other arm went around his stomach, trying to ease the pain. “A tattoo,” he tried lamely.

“Do you think I’m stupid or something?” Lewis twisted the arm to the right, against the direction of the elbow and Len cried out in pain. “Do you? This isn’t a tattoo. This is a fucking soulmark!” The hand squeezing his thumb into his palm slid up to his wrist, where he pressed down onto Len’s mark painfully. Where Mick’s touch on his soulmark always sent thrills and sparks up to his body, Lewis’s fingers felt like burning iron, like he was digging into a fresh bullet wound.

“No, no, it’s not!” Even to his own ears, Len sounded like he was pleading. “It’s just a tattoo. Just something I got done stupidly. It doesn’t mean anything!”

“You think I can’t tell the difference between ink and a mark? I know what a mark looks like. When did this happen? Who is she?”

Even with his father twisting his arm in a way that had Len’s elbow screaming in pain, and surely already sprained, he couldn’t help the weak laugh that bubbled out of his throat. “One second you’re accusing me of being gay, and the next second you think I got my soulmark from a girl?” Len raised his eyes and smirked up at his father. “It’s a fire, Dad. Who the hell do you think it came from?”

Lewis’s face darkened like a storm cloud. He twisted Len’s arm sharply to the right hard enough that he heard it snap or pop, or do something else nasty. Len howled in agony, but luckily Lewis finally dropped the arm, so Len could cradle it to his body.

But Lewis only dropped the arm so he could smack Len in the side of the head. The lower angle and the force sent Len sideways to the floor. Len rolled to his side to try to sit up again, all while trying to be mindful of his arm. But Lewis stamped down on the elbow, which had Len screaming in pain again, and then he kicked him in his already bruised gut.

Len rolled with the blow, right into the stairs, where he caught himself with his good arm. He dragged himself up by the bannister and turned to look over his shoulder, but Lewis’s boot to his face had him on the floor again.

“That’s impossible! Two guys can’t be soulmates! That’s faggy queer bullshit! You think you can lie to me like that!” Lewis continued to rant and rave as he kept kicking Len.

All Len could do against the onslaught was curl into a ball with his left arm around his head. He didn’t try to say anything. He didn’t try to get up.

“You’re wrong! You fucking faggot! Tell me who she is, now!” Lewis didn’t stop beating Len against the bottom edge of the staircase. “Think you can go behind my back! Think you can do what you want!”

Len curled tighter into a ball and tried not to whimper. It seemed everything that had been pissing his father off lately was coming out now. Already, his voice sounded like it was echoing as he kept screaming at his son. Even though Len could still feel the blows against his body, his father sounded very far away. But even when he started to lose consciousness, he heard every vicious word Lewis said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeaaah... Like I said, Lewis is a complete shit. And I know Len and Mick's first job together was supposed to go wrong, according to 1.15, but I wrote this before that episode aired, and just decided to keep it as-is.
> 
> Thanks for the kind comments on the last chapter, and all the chapters before. I needed those, considering I had to deal with comments from an egotistical close-minded idiot (if you're still reading, you know who you are). For me, fanfiction is where I go when I don't want to deal with real life. My writing reflects what is important to me. I don't do it to suit other people's desires. I write because something is scratching at my brain and needs to get out. I share it because I get that other people need to get into other worlds and get out of their own sometimes. 
> 
> Sorry for the rant. Needed to get that out. Normally I look forward to all the comments I get, but yesterday was hell.


	9. Chapter 9

Mick rolled over in bed. Something was making noise and it had woken him up and it was pretty fucking annoying. He cracked his eyes opened and realized it was the damn phone. He forgot the stupid thing was even connected to the wall. He groaned and covered his head with his pillow. He was rethinking his decision to not keep the thing off the hook.

But then he remembered the number was unlisted, and only a handful of people knew it. It was actually Len who’d convinced him to keep the phone plugged in just in case he needed to get in touch. So if someone was calling him, it was probably important.

He stumbled out of bed and snatched up the phone on the fourth ring. “What?” he slurred out as he ran his hand over his face. Once he was making enough from the jobs he and Len pulled, he’d quit that stupid factory job, so he wasn’t working long nights anymore. But considering he spent many of his nights not sleeping, he wanted all the sleep he could get.

There were some sniffling sounds for a few seconds, and then a quiet, high-pitched voice said, “Mick?”

Mick frowned and held the phone closer to his ear. It was a kid. Why would a kid be calling him? And then his brain woke up more. “...Lisa?” he asked.

He’d only spoken to Lisa a few times by this point. After all, Len did his best to make sure his father didn’t know about his and Mick’s relationship. And while Lisa wasn’t likely to snitch on her brother, she was still a six year old.

Lisa sniffled again. It sounded like she’d been crying. Which was not a good sign. “Lisa, what’s wrong? Is your brother there? Put your brother on the phone.”

The sniffling got louder and Mick was worried for a second it was going to turn into full blown sobbing. But Lisa seemed to get a hold of herself. “It’s Lenny,” she said at last. “Daddy was really angry. I heard them yelling, and then… and then…” She was crying, Mick could hear it in her voice. “I had to wait until he went out again.”

Mick’s blood normally ran hot. But at that moment, he felt it run cold. “Lisa, where’s your brother? Where’s Len?”

“He’s here.” She was actively fighting against tears, taking in big choking breaths as she kept talking. “He’s hurt real bad.”

“Okay, okay. I’m coming.” He had the cord of the phone stretched as far as it would go so he could snatch his jeans off the floor and yank them on. He grabbed the closest T-shirt he could reach and switched the phone between ears as he pulled it over his head. “Stay there. I’ll be right there.”

“Please hurry,” she all but sobbed. “He’s not moving.”

Mick swore his heart stopped. Fuck, he never believed in gods or anything. The closest thing he had was fire, but that wasn’t no deity. He still sent up a prayer just in case  _ something _ was listening, just asking for Lenny to still be alive. “Okay. I’m coming. I gotta get off the phone, but I’ll be there soon. Just… stay by his side.”

He heard Lisa sniffle a few more times, and then she gave him a weak, “Okay.”

Mick threw the phone at the receiver and missed. He didn’t care. He didn’t even bother to lock his door, just slammed it shut behind him. It was a good thing they’d stolen a mostly broken down car for getaways a little while back. It was usually kept at the warehouse so it couldn’t be traced back to them. Len bitched at him if he used it for personal reasons. But this time, he thanked fucking god he’d gotten lazy and used the damn thing to drive home.

He drove like a demon, and was really lucky no cops were between him and the house where the Snarts lived. He jumped the curb when he came to a sudden stop in front of the house. Which was yet another thing he  _ didn’t care about _ . All he cared about was how scared Lisa had sounded when she’d told him Lenny wasn’t moving.

He was unsurprised to find the front door was unlocked. Of course the stupid fucker had left it unlocked when he’d drunkenly stumbled out after beating his son. Mick hoped he drove off a cliff in his drunken state. The door banged open, and the first thing he saw was Lisa visibly flinch and cower. Mick felt bad about that, and he wondered how many times their father had made similar entrances.

But that concern quickly left his head when he took in Len’s form curled up against the bottom step of the staircase. His clothes were torn and dirty with boot prints and what little he could see of his face and arms were covered with bruises. And his right arm was bent at an unnatural angle. But worst of all, Lisa was right. Len wasn’t moving. There was no noticeable rise and fall of his chest.

Mick’s heart clenched up in fear. He didn’t even worry about potentially terrifying Lisa. He crossed the space in two quick strides and slid down to his knees. “No, no, no. Don’t do this to me, Lenny. Come on, Len. Come on,” he chanted as he carefully turned Len over onto his back.

It was even worse up close. “Len, Lenny.” Mick cradled his face and looked for any kind of movement. “Come on Lenny. Wake up, Len.” He was crap at finding pulsepoints. So he went for the easy one. He normally would take Len’s right wrist whenever he would touch him, but there was no way he was touching his arm when it was broken and fucked up like that. So he carefully wrapped his fingers around Len’s left wrist. He held his breath and waited. 

There was a flutter under his fingers, a pulse. Mick leaned over Len and held his ear close to his mouth. Just barely, he could make out the raspy sounded of Len breathing. He was breathing, even if it didn’t sound right.

“Oh thank god, thank god…” Mick whispered and dropped his forehead to Len’s chest. “He’s alive…”

Lisa hiccupped beside him, and he turned his head to look at her. Her face was a mess, all blotchy and covered with tears. She had snot running down her face. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked between hiccups. 

Mick wasn’t a nice person. He didn’t know how to lie so as not to scare kids. So he told the truth. “I don’t know.” He rearranged his legs so he was kneeling beside Len and carefully slung his left arm around his neck, while he settled Len’s broken right arm on his chest. Being extra careful to jostle him as little as possible, Mick slid one arm under Len’s back and the other under his knees. He pushed himself to his feet and turned towards the door.  

“Come on, kid,” he called over his shoulder.

“Where… where are we going?” Lisa asked as she joined him at his side. She was the one who closed the front door behind them.

“Hospital. Len is hurt bad. He needs a doctor. A real one.”

“No, no, no.” Lisa jumped in front of his path with her hands held up.

Mick growled. “Out of my way kid. If I don’t get him to a hospital, he could die.”

“Lenny doesn’t like hospitals,” Lisa pleaded. “Daddy doesn’t like hospitals.”

“I don’t give a fuck what that bastard likes. Lenny would kill me if I left you behind, so either you come with me easily, or I knock you out and have to drag both of you to the car. Now, you gonna help your brother, or you gonna stand there and let him die?”

Lisa’s eyes were wide as dinner plates. But she moved out of Mick’s way. And then she did one better. She ran over to the car and pulled open the back door, before crawling in towards the far seat. “I’ll keep him steady while you drive,” she said.

Mick nodded and leaned into the car to carefully move Len into the back seat, trying not to bump any potential injuries. Once he had Len stretched out along the back seat, with his head cradled in Lisa’s lap, he slammed the door and headed for the driver’s side. He didn’t quite drive like a demon on his way to the hospital. The last thing they needed was for a cop to pull them over or to ask too many questions. He carried Len into the ER himself, with Lisa trailing behind him. He didn’t even care if the car got towed because it was left somewhere he couldn’t park.

The doctors and nurses took one look at Len’s condition and then took him off Mick’s hands almost immediately. It might be the crappiest hospital in the poorest neighborhood of Central City, but at least some people still did their jobs. But they wouldn’t let Mick or Lisa near Len after taking him back. Mick paced back and forth and gave the hospital fake names he and Len had decided on ages ago in case this kind of thing happened. He eventually took a seat in one of the cheap plastic chairs and dropped his head into his hands. 

Lisa came to sit next to him. She was crying again. When Mick lowered his hands so he could look at her, she sniffled and then crawled into his lap. It was something he’d seen her do to Len before. Len put up with, and even encouraged, it. Len  _ hated _ to be touched by strangers, but when it came to the people he cared about, the people he loved, it was like he was touch-starved. Lisa grew up in the same household. It was no surprise she was the same. Mick didn’t look too hard into what it meant that Lisa trusted him enough to do this.

He just tentatively wrapped one arm around her tiny shoulders and let her sob into his shirt. “What if he dies, Mick?” she cried. “What if he dies?”

Mick patted her back gently. “He’s tough.” He wasn’t one to make fake assurances, say  _ everything’s gonna be okay _ when he didn’t know if it would be. “Lenny’s one of the toughest bastards I know. 

Lisa sniffled and didn’t say anything else. After a few minutes, Mick realized she’d fallen asleep like that. Poor kid had probably tired herself out by panicking and crying. So Mick let her sleep with her head on his shoulder, a proxy for her older brother, while he waited for a doctor to tell him whether his soulmate would live or die.

 

The fake names were good for multiple reasons. The first was they both had records, and while Len had made sure they were never caught for any of the jobs they’d pulled since getting out of juvie, he couldn’t be completely sure they didn’t have warrants out for their arrest. The other reason was it kept Lewis Snart from figuring out what hospital his son was in.

Mick leaned against the wall of the hospital with his hand cupped over the receiver of a payphone. Hospital phones might as well be prison phones for all he was concerned.

“Rumor is Lewis Snart’s kids have gone missing. So lay low.”

“Yeah,” Mick rumbled. He’d called one of the few people aside from Len he actually trusted once Len was moved out of the ICU and into a regular hospital room. He needed an update on Lewis Snart, to make sure he wasn’t going to come storming into the hospital to finish the job he’d started. “Thanks. I owe you.”

“Yeah, you do, Mick. Watch your back.” 

The line went dead and Mick hung up the phone. He sighed and braced his hand against the wall for a second before he walked back into the hospital room where Len was laid up. His eyes immediately raked over Len’s form when he walked in. Now that the sun was out, it was all the more clear just what damage Lewis had done. Len’s face was covered with bruises, and he sported one black eye, though that was hardly new. His entire right arm was covered in a white cast from shoulder to the bottom of his fingers. And even though he couldn’t see it, Mick knew that under the thin hospital gown, Len’s chest and torso were wrapped in bandages from broken ribs.

Lisa was curled up in one of the old hospital chairs beside the bed. This one was at least better than the plastic chairs in the waiting room, but not by much. The cloth seat was old, stained and had barely any padding. Lisa had her arm propped on one of the high wooden arms, with her head pillowed on top of it. She hadn’t been able to sleep through the night, and kept waking up to check on Len, who was still out cold.

But at least she’d been able to sleep. Mick had been awake all night, sitting first in the waiting room with Lisa, and then beside Len’s bed once they let them in. He lied and said he was Lisa’s guardian, and since she was family, they let them both in. The hospital staff probably couldn’t be bothered to care enough to stop them, anyway.

He sank down into the matching cheap hospital chair on the other side of the bed from Lisa. He slouched heavily in the chair, enough so that he could prop his elbow on the wooden arm and rest his forehead in his hand. He felt drained, which probably had something to do with being awake all night, but also from the worry. The doctors had assured Mick Len would be fine. He didn’t have a concussion or any kind of brain injuries. And while his injuries were bad, they would heal. He was lucky.

Mick wanted to punch the bastard who said he was lucky. What part of  _ this _ looked like luck? It was only luck when you considered Lewis could have fucking killed his son, and in that way, Len got off easy. Mick ran his hand over his face again. God, he wanted to light something on fire so bad. But the need to stay by Lenny’s side was still winning out over his pyromaniac desires. 

As Mick sat there lost in his own thoughts, Len shifted on the bed. There was a sharp intake of air and then his eyes cracked open. “Mick…?” he said weakly. His voice was hoarse.

Mick dropped his arm and leaned forward onto the edge of his seat so he could slide one hand into Len’s uninjured left hand, and move his other hand tenderly to the side of Len’s face. “Hey, buddy…” he said quietly.

Len swallowed thickly and then his tongue darted out to wet his dry lips. “Where… What happened?” He closed his eyes against the light and then opened them again to look at Mick’s face.

“Whadda’ya remember?” Mick tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible, but he squeezed Len’s hand a little tighter.

Len closed his eyes again and titled his head slightly so he could lean into Mick’s palm. “Got home late after working on some plans. My father was drunk, and… Oh.” His eyes snapped open and he stared into Mick’s face. 

“You remember?” Mick tried to say softly, but there was a hard edge to it.

Len swallowed again and nodded stiffly. “How’d I get here?” he asked.

“Lisa called me,” Mick said.

Len’s eyes briefly flashed with panic. “Lisa? Is she okay? Did my father try to…?”

“She’s just fine,” Mick assured him quickly. He nodded his head towards the other side of the bed, and Len glanced over to see Lisa still curled up in her chair. Despite the conversation, she hadn’t woken up.

Len let out a long, low sigh. “Good…” He turned his head back to look at Mick again. He gazed at him for a few moments, his eyes roving back and forth as he took in Mick’s face. “I’m sorry…”

“The fuck do you have to be sorry for?” Mick growled, low enough that he wouldn’t wake Lisa.

“This. Making you deal with this.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Lenny.” Mick closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. He didn’t move his hands though. Instead, he leaned down closer so their faces were only a few inches apart. “No matter what, I’ve always got your back. I thought you learned that back in juvie.”

The corner of Len’s lip quirked up slightly into the semblance of a smile. “This is a bit different than just making sure I don’t get shivved.”

“Yeah, no kidding. This is your bastard of a father.” He squeezed Len’s hand. “First chance I get, I am going to set the fucker on fire.”

“Mick…”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” Len sighed again. “But you can’t. You just… you can’t.”

“He doesn’t deserve to keep breathing after what he’s done to you,” Mick said viciously.

“ _ No _ , Mick. Just… no.” For a moment, Len put on the commanding boss voice he used on jobs. But then it was gone, and he just looked tired again.

So Mick decided not to push it. That didn’t mean he was planning to let Lewis Snart survive their encounter, if it ever happened. He just leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Len’s. “You scared the  _ fuck  _ out of me…” he whispered.

“My bad…” Len whispered, with a ghost of a chuckle. “How bad is it?”

Mick pulled back so he could look down at him again. “Well, you’re gonna feel like shit for a while, that’s for sure. Especially when they take away the morphine drip.”

Len titled his head back so he could see the IV he was hooked up to. “Figured that one out.”

Mick sighed and sat back, but kept his left hand around Len’s. “You broke two ribs, and punctured a lung. Which means you won’t be able to move very well for a while.”

“Yeah, even with the morphine, I can feel that…”

“There was internal bleeding, but they were able to take care of that. If Lisa hadn’t called me when she did, though, it could’ve been a lot worse…”

Len squeezed his hand and smiled weakly. “Lucky me, then…”

“And your arm’s broken.” Mick nodded his head to the other side of the bed, where Len’s right arm was in a cast. “Two breaks in the uh… what’d they call it…” He lifted his other arm to tap his own forearm on the outside. “That one. And your elbow was dislocated, so they had to pop it back into place. Your wrist is broken too, which is why the cast covers your hand.”

No sooner had he finished listing off the fractures, then Len’s eyes went wide and he yanked his hand back so he could reach over to his right arm. He ran his hand up and down the cast and then started scratching at the white plaster over his wrist.

“Woah, woah, Lenny, stop!” Mick stood up so he could grab his left arm back and pull it away from the cast.

Len winced hard and bit his lower lip when both their actions shifted his broken ribs. “My mark, my mark…” he chanted. “I’ve gotta see it, make sure the bastard didn’t…”

“Calm down, Lenny.” Mick pulled Len’s arm back more and made him lay flat on his back again.

“You don’t understand.” His eyes looked wild. “He saw my soulmark, and that’s why he… If he did something… I just need to see it.”

Mick didn’t think it was possible for him to hate Lewis Snart more than he already did. But hearing that, he felt the rushing of blood in his ears, and he thought for a second his vision was going to go red with rage. The only thing that kept him grounded was the panic on Len’s face. So he reached over with his left hand and gently placed it on the plaster over Len’s wrist, where he knew Len’s soulmark was. Even through the barrier, he could feel the sympathetic tug of Len’s mark against his own.

“It’s okay, Len. Your soulmark’s still there.” Mick turned his wrist towards Len’s face so he could see the inside of his wrist. “See, mine is perfectly intact. If something had happened to yours, it woulda happened to mine too.” Mick wasn’t really sure that was true, but he knew if someone’s soulmate died, their soulmark would start to fade. You couldn’t laser off or burn off a soulmark the way you could a tattoo. Soulmarks ran much deeper than that.

Len reached up shakily and pressed his fingers into Mick’s soulmark. He closed his eyes and took a long, shuddering breath, as if it was Mick touching Len’s soulmark, and not the other way around.

“Yeah, yeah… You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking…”

Mick reached down and took Len’s face in both his hands. The action made Len open his eyes and look up at him again. He still looked slightly worried, but like he was trying to fight down the emotion and cover it up with one of his usual masks. Mick didn’t know what else to say, so he leaned down and kissed him so softly and gently, barely brushing his lips against Len’s. And then he pulled back to rest his forehead against Len’s once more.

“Lenny…?” a tired voice said.

Mick pulled back so both of them could look over to see Lisa sitting up in her chair and rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. Len’s frantic movements must have woken her up.

Len cracked a small smile. “Hey, Lis.”

“You’re awake,” she said quietly. She reached out and poked at the cast on his arm. “Me and Mick were real scared you wouldn’t wake up…”

Len reached over with his left hand, even though it looked like the action pained him slightly. He caught Lisa’s small hand in his and squeezed. “But I did. See? Nothing to worry about.” When Lisa nodded, he dropped his arm back down to his side. Suddenly, he looked very tired again.

Lisa made a move like she was going to try to climb onto the bed, so Mick reached over and lifted her easily into the air. Even for a six year old, she was small, just like Lenny had been small for a fourteen year old when Mick had met him. “Let’s be careful of Len’s broken arm, okay?” he said as he set her down on the left side of the bed.

Lisa looked over her shoulder at him and nodded frantically, and then she settled down pressed up against Len’s left side with her head against his shoulder. “Are you gonna be okay, Lenny?”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay…” he said. He carefully maneuvered his left hand so he could pat her hair. “I’m always okay, right?”

“Right…” Lisa whispered. “You’d tell me if you’re not okay, right?”

“Yeah, of course…” Len titled his head down so he could press his cheek against the top of her head. “Mick told me you called him.”

Lisa nodded again, but she still had her face hidden against Len’s shoulder. “You said if there was trouble, I should call Mick. So I waited for Daddy to leave and I called Mick.”

“You did good, Lisa.” Len moved his hand around to the back of her head so he could hug her awkwardly. “I’m so proud of you.” Len raised his eyes so he could meet Mick’s over Lisa’s head.

Lisa sniffled against Len’s shoulder. “I was so scared, Lenny…” she said as she started to cry again.

“Hey, hey… It’s okay…” He turned his head so he could kiss her hair. “I’m okay. I’m going to be okay, Lisey. Thanks to you. Don’t you worry about me.”

That didn’t make Lisa stop crying. If anything she started crying harder as she made incomprehensible noises that were probably supposed to be words. Len met Mick’s eyes again and a small smile curved his lips, while he kept patting Lisa’s head.

After this went on for a few minutes, Mick reached under Lisa and pried her off Len. “Okay, kid, come on. Give your brother a break.” He let Lisa sit in his lap while she rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“Sorry, Lenny…” she mumbled around her hands.

“It’s okay, Lis…” Len really did look tired again.

So Mick reached out and took his hand again. “Get some rest. You probably need a whole lot of it. I’m gonna have to sneak you out of here later before they realize I gave them fakes names. So enjoy the morphine while you got it.”

Len smirked lightly and let his eyes drift closed. “Sounds like a good plan…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have a thing for hurt/comfort. So this may be my favorite chapter.


	10. Chapter 10

Mick did manage to successfully sneak Len out of the hospital later that day. And lucky for them, the old getaway car wasn’t towed because Mick had actually bothered to park it properly after the doctors had told him Len would live. Lisa showed she had the makings of a grade A thief when she produced several vials of morphine once they were safely driving away from the hospital. Mick cackled loudly and even Len cracked a smile, though he was in a lot of pain from all the movement.

Lisa wandered around Mick’s apartment while Mick got Len settled on his bed. He’d made one half-hearted attempt to walk on his own, claiming his legs weren’t broken, but he’d only barely managed to stand next to the car before almost tumbling to the ground. Which was why it was lucky Mick was there to scoop him up. He didn’t mind carrying Len up the stairs. Even though they were almost the same height now, Len was still impossibly skinny.

“You better not get addicted to this stuff…” Mick mumbled as he gave Len a shot of the morphine.

“Yes, sir…” Len slurred as he settled down into the bed. It was obvious he’d been in boatloads of pain, so the effects of the morphine finally loosened up the pinched expression on his face.

Which left Mick with the task of entertaining Lisa once again. However, once she was convinced her brother would be okay, she seemed perfectly fine. She sat on the kitchen counter kicking her feet while Mick made pasta for them. It was one of the few things he could cook, and it was easy to make for multiple people. Though he dug out a can of chicken soup from the back of a cabinet for Len.

“I’m not sick, just injured…” he grumbled when Mick handed him a mug with the soup in it since it would be easier to handle with one arm.

“You’re doped up on pain meds,” Mick said. “You get soup.”

Lisa sat cross-legged on the couch with her bowl of spaghetti in her lap as she watched whatever mindless thing she’d found on the TV. “Yeah, Lenny. Be a good patient.”

Len rolled his eyes, but silently sipped at his soup. Mick settled down on the bed next to him and kept one eye on Lisa while he ate. But she was perfectly content to sit there and watch TV. 

And when Len told her to take a bath and get ready for bed, she didn’t argue. Mick didn’t have any clothes that would even remotely fit a six year old, so she was swimming in the T-shirt he gave her. Together, they rearranged the cushions on the couch so they’d be slightly more comfortable. She curled up under the one extra blanket Mick had, and then poked her head out to look at him.

“You gonna sleep with Lenny?” she asked in that innocent kid way.

Mick frowned. “No, I’ll probably sleep on the floor…”

“Bullshit,” Len said from behind him. There wasn’t a lot of privacy in a studio apartment. “Come over here. I’ll be  _ fine _ .”

Mick walked over to look down at Len. “Len, your arm and two ribs are broken.”

“Then don’t kick me off the bed, and we’re good.” Len gave him a hard look. Mick had a feeling that if he could, he’d be crossing his arms.

Mick heard giggling from the couch and looked over to see Lisa’s head poking up over the cocoon of her blanket. So Mick shook his head and carefully got into his bed on Len’s left side. “If this starts hurting you, I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Shut up,” Len said. He settled down pressed against Mick’s side.

“Night Lenny!” Lisa called out from the couch.

“Night Lis…”

“Night Mick!”

Mick glanced over, and couldn’t help smile just a bit. “Night, kid.”

The next morning, Lisa woke them up way too early. Len was stiff and groaned in pain upon waking. Mick was just tired and felt like he could use another six hours of sleep. But Lisa tugged him out of bed.

“Do you know how to make pancakes? I know how to make pancakes! Let’s make pancakes for breakfast!” she said cheerily as she pulled Mick into the kitchen. 

Mick humored her with the pancake making. What surprised him was the fact that he actually had ingredients for pancakes. They even got Len to sit up somewhat so he could have some too.

Once Lisa was settled back down in front of the TV though, Len sighed and pulled Mick over so he could say quietly, “She can’t stay here forever… My father’s going to come looking for her, and if he gets his cop buddies involved…”

Mick looked at him. “You want to take her  _ back _ there?”

“It’s the only thing I can do now…” Len said a bit desperately. “I’m working on a way to get her out. But for right now, the best place for her is actually that house…”

Lisa seemed just as reluctant to go home as Mick, especially when she learned Len wouldn’t be coming with her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him. “No, Lenny, I don’t want to go home without you!” she wailed.

He just carefully pulled her arms off his neck. “Mick, take her home.”

Mick knew just as well that his apartment was no place for a six year old. He could look after Lenny, sure. But he couldn’t also look after Lisa, what with her needing to go to school and everything.

Lisa sat quietly in the passenger seat while Mick drove her home. Len had to stay behind because it would be too much stress on his ribs to try to go back down the stairs again. Occasionally, Lisa would sniffle and rub at her eyes.

“Hey, kid,” Mick said when he stopped in front of the house. Lewis’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so the bastard got a free pass from Mick killing him.

Lisa looked up at him with her hand hanging off the handle of the door. “Yeah?”

“You ever need my help, you call me. Got it?” He looked down at her and made eye contact, so that she knew he was serious. “If you need to get away, you come over to my place. You don’t need to call first. You can come over whenever you need to. Understand?”

Lisa looked at him for a moment and then nodded her head. She dropped her hand from the handle of the car and let it fall into her lap. She twisted for hands together for a moment as she stared down at them. It was obvious she wanted to say something, so he waited.

“You promise to take care of my brother, right?”

Mick blinked in surprised. “Of course I’m gonna take care of him.”

Lisa looked up at him again. “Promise? Really promise?”

“Yeah, I really promise.”

Lisa smiled slightly. “Good.” She paused and chewed on her lip. “You really love Lenny, don’t you?”

Mick was surprised by the question, but he couldn’t help the smile that came to his face. “Yeah, I really do.” He looked out the window. “He’s my soulmate.”

Lisa titled her head slightly as she looked at him. “Can I see it?”

“See what?” Mick looked back down at her.

“Your soulmark. Lenny never lets me see his.”

Mick shook his head. “Not surprised. He keeps it hidden from everyone.” Mick didn’t say, “except me.” Instead, he leaned over so he could twist his left arm across his body and hold his arm out towards Lisa with his wrist turned up.

Lisa looked down at the snowflake on his wrist and smiled just a bit. She reached out, but then pulled her hand back, as if unsure what she was allowed to do. Mick nodded, so she gently touched the black lines on his skin.

“Huh,” she said. “Daddy doesn’t have a soulmark.” She looked up to meet his eyes again. 

Mick wasn’t surprised. Not everyone had a soulmate or a soulmark. It wasn’t exactly rare, but it wasn’t common. Probably if people did a census, they’d find about half the population met their soulmates, and the other half didn’t. So it wasn’t unusual for the extras to pair together, get married, have kids, and such. Some people without soulmates would stay away from that kind of thing just in case their partner ever  _ did _ meet his or her soulmate. How awful would it be to be with someone, and then lose them to the person they were destined to be with? Mick couldn’t even imagine being with anyone but Len.

“Some people don’t,” he said.

“Do you think that’s why he’s…”

“A bastard?” Mick sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What if I never meet my soulmate?” she said in a quiet, small voice. “Will I end up like him?”

Mick looked at her again. “Your father would be a bastard no matter what. Do you want to hit people you care about when you’re angry?”

“No!” she said quickly.

“Good.” Mick reached out and ruffled Lisa’s hair. “Just be better than him. Doesn’t matter if you have a soulmate or not. You just don’t be like your father.”

Lisa thought about that for a moment and then nodded her head. “Thanks, Mick.” She turned and grabbed the door handle once more so she could let herself out. Before walking away, she leaned down to look at him. “And thanks for taking care of my brother. I’m glad you’re his soulmate.” She closed the door and quickly headed into the house.

Mick thought about that strange conversation the whole drive back to his place.

 

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” Mick asked when he walked into his apartment to find Len on his feet, with various plans spread out in front of him on the kitchen table. Mick dropped the bag of groceries in his hands on the counter with a thump and turned to glare at Len.

Len didn’t even bother to turn to look at Mick. He traced something on one of his plans, and then wrapped his left arm around his torso, against the pain of his ribs. “Working on my plans. What does it look like?”

“You shouldn’t be  _ standing _ ,” Mick said.

“My ribs are healing. They hurt, but so does my arm.” Len finally looked up so he could meet Mick’s eyes. “I’m okay, Mick.”

“Shouldn’t’ve gotten those stupid plans from the safe house for you…” he grumbled as he started putting food away. Seriously, he left for half an hour and came back to this.

“I’m not going to spend the next three weeks while my bones heal bedridden,” Len said nonchalantly. “Since I can’t work any jobs, I might as well make myself useful some other way.”

“You can make yourself useful by actually  _ healing _ .”

Len waved him off with his left hand. Then he reached over to scratch at the top of his right hand, the little bit he could reach under his cast. “Can’t wait to get this stupid thing off…” he mumbled.

While they’d left the hospital in a hurry, Mick had used his connections to find an underground doctor who he could take Len to in order to make sure he was healing up the way he was supposed to. And the guy told Len he had to keep the cast on for six weeks. More than even his ribs, that was what was driving Len crazy. He hated not being able to use both hands.

Len’s eighteenth birthday had come and gone. While a year ago, Mick would’ve thought that was going to be a big night for them, it actually turned out to be completely lackluster. Besides, it wasn’t like they hadn’t already started having sex early. 

Since Len couldn’t leave the apartment for the first week or so, he sent Mick off to make sure Lisa got home from school okay each day. Lisa would chat away with him amicably enough, and more than he’d even realized, she had accepted him as another older brother, like an extension of Lenny. If he ever saw Lewis at home when he dropped Lisa off, he had to fight the overwhelming desire to go in and knock the old man around. But he didn’t. If Len told him to, he’d kill the guy in a heartbeat, but Len inexplicably wanted him alive. So he did what Len wanted.

When Len finally got his cast off three weeks later, the first thing he did was run his fingertips along his soulmark. Once they were alone again, Mick stood over him and took his forearm gently so they could press their marks together. Len’s carefully constructed mask fell a bit at that, and he yanked Mick over to kiss him hard. His right arm looked like it was half as thick as his left, with all the muscle mass he’d lost while it’d been in a cast.

So it took another two weeks before Len was fully up and running again. Once he considered himself “good enough,” he and Mick wasted no time getting reacquainted with each other’s bodies. Though Mick was much more gentle than he would have otherwise been as he fucked Len into his mattress, just in case his ribs weren’t fully healed. Len didn’t let go of his left arm the entire time, and kept their soulmarks firmly pressed together.

It was a hard call whether having sex again after two months was more satisfying than the next job they pulled, which gained them a healthy amount of gold jewelry, several pieces of which Len was happy to bestow upon his baby sister. Len even let Mick light the place on fire on their way out.

They made sure to steer clear of any jobs Lewis would be working on. If Mick ran into him, he was likely to kill him. And if Len ran into him… Well, it was hard to tell what Len would do. But Mick saw the way Len’s eyes went cold when he noticed a bruise or a burn or a mark on Lisa’s skin that hadn’t been there the previous day.

Of all Len’s plans and heists, there was one he spent considerable time on. But when Mick asked him what the job would be, Len waved him off and told him it wasn’t a job they were pulling. Mick didn’t understand why he’d be working on it if it wasn’t a job they were pulling, but he didn’t ask for more details. If Lenny didn’t want to talk about it, he wasn’t going to bug him.

In the meantime, they did pull other jobs. And they weren’t always successful, despite Let’s boasts of being better than his father. One such landed Mick in county jail for six months.

“You can’t take the fall for this,” Len hissed at him over the phone.

“Better me than you. Don’t worry. They can’t really pin anything on me.”

Len was still not happy with the turn of events. Especially the part where he couldn’t see Mick for six months. 

When he got home from that, Len only used the amount of time it took him to say, “Next time something goes wrong, let me come up with a plan before you blindly take the fall.” And then he was on Mick. They didn’t even make it back to the bedroom.

But Mick still didn’t get to see what Let’s mystery plan was until much later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost at the end! Only one chapter left!


	11. Chapter 11

Len stood at his work table with his palms spread out flat on the tabletop to either side of him. The table was covered with plans, and in front of him stood two devices. One was a police scanner, with the volume turned down low enough that he could still hear it, but it wasn’t noticeable otherwise. The other was a simple two-way radio, which would occasionally crackle to life with short messages.

He saw Mick walk up to him out of the corner of his eye, but before Mick could say anything, he held up his hand and then gestured towards the radio.

“ _ I’m here. But the fucking thing isn’t. It was supposed to be here! _ ”

“ _ What do you mean it isn’t there?” _ another voice crackled over the radio. Len crossed his arms as he stared down at it. Mick stepped up to the table and looked at him curiously, but he didn’t say anything.

“ _ I said it isn’t there, Snart! What kind of half-baked plan is this? _ ”

Mick looked over at Len sharply, but Len kept his eyes firmly on the radio. He was waiting for his cue.

“ _ My source says it’s supposed to be there! Get back here, let’s shake down some hostages. _ ”

“ _ If you’ve been leading us on, Snart… _ ”

“ _ Just get back here! _ ”

The exchange stopped and Len lifted his wrist so he could look at his watch and start counting the seconds. He waited a full sixty before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap wireless phone. He dialed 911 and held it up to his ear while Mick gave him a completely confused and worried expression.

“911. What is your emergency?” an almost bored voice answered him. God, the state of this city.

But Len put on the best scared bystander voice he could manage. “Yes, hello? I’m outside Central National Bank, and I just saw men with guns! I think they’re going to hurt someone. Oh god, were those gunshots? Please send someone quickly.”

Mick raised both eyebrows at his performance. So Len smirked at him, but kept the phone pressed to his ear.

“Just hold on, sir. I’ve dispatched officers to your location. I’m going to need you to get to a safe place and stay away from the entrance to the building.

“Yes, yes, I’m leaving. Were those more gunshots?”

“Sir? Wait, I need you to stay nearby in case something happens. Sir? Sir?”

Len disconnected the call. And then he dropped the phone on the floor and stamped it under his boot. Pieces of circuitry went skidding across the concrete floor.

Mick watched him for a moment, and then said, “You gonna tell me what that was all about?”

“Shh…” Len said quietly. He leaned over and turned up the volume on the police scanner.

“ _ Confirmed. We have a 132 in progress at Central National Bank. _ ” There was static for a moment. “ _ Shots fired! I repeat, shots fired! Requesting immediate backup! _ ”

Len smirked and rested his palms on the table once more. He listened as more officers appeared on the scene, and reported into their radios. At one point, he thought he even caught the sound of legitimate gunshots in the background as one officer was talking.

“What is all this, Len?” Mick asked after this went on for several more minutes.

“This,” Len said smugly, “is my plan.”

“ _ Three suspects in custody, one more—Officer down! Officer down! _ ”

Len straightened up and stared intently at the police scanner. Mick crossed his arms as he waited for more explanation.

There was a lot of jumbled shouting from the police scanner as different officers reported in. It seemed one had been shot, and had to be rushed to the hospital. But Len was waiting for confirmation all the bank robbers had been arrested.

After several more tense minutes, “ _ We got him. Fourth suspect in custody. Name: Lewis Snart, _ ” came over the radio.

Len sighed and rested his elbows on the table so he could run his hands up over his head. He let out a long breath in relief.

“Okay, now are you going to tell me what exactly is going on?” Mick asked.

Len straightened up again, and finally turned to look at him. “It’s a botched bank robbery.”

“I got that.” Mick waved his hand at the police scanner. “I mean about your asshole father.”

“I fed him a rumor through a friend of a friend of a friend that there were bonds locked in a safe deposit box at Central National worth more than everything in the vault combined.”

Mick grunted. “Sounds like the perfect score.”

“Right. One I knew my father wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“Okay. So it was a daytime bank robbery. Why’d you have to call it in?”

“Cause I disabled the silent alarm.” Len glanced down at the two-way radio, which had gone silent since all the robbers had been caught. He reached out and turned down the volume on the police scanner. “Or more, I leaked the info on how to do it. Couldn’t look like he was walking into a trap after all. So I had to call to get the police there in a timely fashion.”

“You set him up.” It was hard to tell, but it almost sounded like Mick was impressed.

“Yes.” Len flipped off the radio and the scanner and then started to gather his plans and stack them neatly. “I knew my father's plans had a tendency to go sideways. And when they did, he would react with violence. Against his crew, against bystanders. So I knew once things started to go wrong, he would make some bad decisions.”

“Like shoot a cop?”

Len nodded. “Like shoot a cop. And something like this, something as bad as this, his buddies at CCPD won’t be able to help him out. There’s no way the DA will let this slide. He’ll make an example of my father.” Len looked at Mick levelly. “Which puts him away, where he can’t reach my sister.”

Mick looked at him for a long moment, staring him right in the eye. And then his face broke out into a grin and he reached out so he could wrap his hand around the back of Let’s head and bring their foreheads together. “You’re crazy. But that is the smartest thing I’ve ever heard. Remind me never to cross you.”

Len huffed out a laugh. “Don’t worry. You’d have to do something truly awful. And even then…” He reached up and touched Mick’s soul mark lightly. And then he pulled back and gathered up the papers. “You want to do the honors?” Len walked over to one of the metal trashcans Mick liked to use so the fires he inevitably had to light wouldn’t spread.

Mick smirked wickedly and joined him in front of the trashcan. He grabbed the sheaf of papers and fished his lighter out of his pocket. It was far removed from the cheap one Len stole for him in juvie. This one was actually silver-plated. Len had nicked it on a recent job and given it to Mick to celebrate five years since they first met.

They stood and watched the papers curl up against the heat and turn to ash. It didn’t take long, but Len still waited to make sure the fire would go out before he turned back to Mick.

“Okay. Let’s go get Lisa.”

Mick looked at him curiously, but he didn’t argue. He got in the driver’s seat and drove them over to his old house. It turned out to be perfect timing, too.

Just as Lisa opened the door to enthusiastically greet Len, another car pulled up in front of the house. Mick straightened up from where he was leaning against the driver’s side of their rundown car, which was parked in the driveway.

A tired middle-aged woman got out of the car. She glanced over at Mick, and then she walked up to the front door, where Len and Lisa stood looking at her. She glanced at Len and then addressed Lisa.

“Are you Lisa Snart, honey?”

Lisa glanced at Len, and then she nodded. She stayed in the open doorway and didn’t move any further out onto the porch, not quite hiding behind Len, but still keeping him between her and the stranger.

“Can I help you?” Len asked calmly.

The woman looked at him. “And who are you?”

“I’m her brother.”

“Ah, you must be Leonard.” The woman flipped open a manilla folder in her hands. “My name is Sally Pincus. I’m with Child Protective Services.”

“And what would CPS want with my sister?” His voice was a scripted nonchalance, almost the drawl he liked to use so much.

“I’m sorry to inform you, son, but your father has been arrested.”

Lisa visibly reacted, but Len crossed his arms and arched one eyebrow. “For what?”

Sally looked down at her file. “Armed robbery.”

“Well, he’s not a very nice man. But that still doesn’t answer my question.”

“I’m here to collect your sister.”

“No!” Lisa said loudly. She glared up at the lady and moved a fraction closer to Len’s side.

“I’ll take her,” Len said, trying not to respond too quickly. “She can stay with me.”

“Do you have a place for her to stay?”

“Yes. I have a spare bedroom.”

She looked at him, and then she flipped through a few pages in her file. “Says here you just turned twenty. Are you going to be able to support an eight year old?”

“Of course.” Lisa moved just a bit closer and slipped her hand into Len's. She turned a wide-eyed expression up towards the woman. He had to try hard not to smirk. There was his little actress.

The woman looked between them and sighed. “Alright.”

Len nodded and looked down at Lisa. “Hey, Lisey, go pack up your things. You’re gonna live with me.”

Lisa’s eyes sparkled and it looked like it took a great deal of effort on her part not to jump into the air and whoop. She turned and ran up the stairs to her room.

Sally reorganized her papers and closed the folder. “To be honest with you, Leonard, we much prefer to put kids with their relatives than in foster homes.”

“We don’t have any other family. Besides,” Len gave her a charming smile, “I practically raise her anyway. That’s what happens when there's a twelve year age difference between siblings.”

“You’d be surprised how many people are unwilling to care for children they’re related to.”

Len crossed his arms. “That’s not me.”

“Well, you’re going to need to come into our office tomorrow to sign some paperwork.”

“Of course.”

Lisa bounded back down the stairs with a big duffel bag over one shoulder, and her pink backpack over another.

“Got everything you want?” Len asked. “Remember, we’re not coming back here.”

Lisa nodded vigorously and reached out to snag Len’s hand again. “Are we going now?”

Sally reached into her folder and pulled out a business card. She held it out to Len. “Leonard, please come to our office tomorrow so we can establish you as her guardian while your father is…”

“Incarcerated?” Len supplied helpfully. He squeezed Lisa’s hand, and with the other took the business card. It disappeared into his pocket. “I will be there.”

She looked between them for another moment, and then she nodded and walked back to her car. She paused to look at Mick again, but whatever she was thinking of doing, she decided against, because she shook her head without saying anything and climbed into her car to drive away.

Len watched her go, and then he pulled the front door closed and picked up Lisa’s duffel bag. Lisa skipped over to Mick and looked like she was practically going to throw herself into his arms. “Mick, I get to live with you guys!”

Mick set his hand on Lisa’s head to keep her excitement down. “Yeah. You’ve got your brother to thank for that.”

Lisa turned big eyes on Len as he tossed the duffel into the back seat of the car. “Really? How’d you do it, Lenny?”

Len smiled. “Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.”

Mick held the door open for Lisa so she could crawl into the back. “Just know your brother always has a plan.” He turned to smirk at Len. “Always plotting.”

Len laughed. “That’s true.”

Lisa didn’t stop talking the entire drive back to their new apartment, which Len had insisted moving to a few months back. Lisa insisted on carrying her own duffel bag and backpack into the apartment. She went right to the second bedroom and dropped her stuff down on the bed in there.

“So that’s why you wanted to get this place so bad…” Mick mumbled as they stood in the hallway.

“Couldn’t exactly have three of us living in that studio apartment,” Len said. He leaned against the wall and watched Lisa wander around the bedroom. He’d insisted on getting a bed and a dresser and everything, to have it ready for Lisa, even if Mick didn’t fully know why. But it wasn’t like they didn’t have a decent bit of money from all the jobs they’d pulled by then.

“You do realize…” Mick started to say slowly. He crowded into Len’s space and propped one hand against the wall by his head. “If your sister is living with us, there are going to be way fewer chances to have sex.”

Len leaned fully back against the wall and hooked one finger in the belt loop of Mick’s pants to tug him closer. “Well, she does still have to go to school.” He smirked up at his soulmate. “And it’s not like we have day jobs.”

“Mm… True…” Mick leaned down to kiss him, but then moved to lick and suck at his neck.

“Lennnnnnnny,” Lisa called as she skipped back out of her new bedroom. She seemed completely unfazed by their intimate position, but they still jerked apart anyway. “So does that mean I get to start coming with you on heists?” She wandered into the living room and started looking around. She stopped and spun back to look at them when they followed her. “Can I drive the getaway car?” she asked excitedly.

Len frowned, but Mick laughed outright. “Already looking at a life of crime?”

“Lenny was doing jobs when he was my age!” She crossed her arms.

“You weren’t even  _ alive _ when I was your age,” Len said in exasperation.

“Well, you were. So why can’t I?”

“ _ I _ was forced into it. I’m not dragging you on jobs.”

“At least until you’re old enough to drive,” Mick chimed in.

“Mick.” Len turned and gave him a look.

Mick shrugged. “Kid wants to go on heists. Give her a few more years and she can probably be as good as you.”

Len rolled his eyes. “Then I’m going to show you how to properly pickpocket someone.” He held up Mick’s lighter.

Mick patted at his pocket. “When…?”

“Case and point.” Len smirked and handed Mick back the lighter.

“And then I get to go on heists with you?” Lisa grabbed Len’s hand and jumped up and down.

“When you’re old enough,” he said, but he still smiled. He caught her wrist a second later and smirked. “Nice try, Lis. But if you do ever manage to pull one over on me, I’ll be impressed.”

Lisa pouted and pulled her hand back from where she’d tried to take something out of his pocket without Len noticing.

“Now, let’s see what we can do about dinner.”

“Okay!” Lisa brightened up immediately and ran into the kitchen.

Len moved to follow, but Mick caught his arm. Len turned and looked at him curiously. So Mick pushed up the sleeve of his shirt and laced their fingers together so their soulmarks lined up. Len closed his eyes and let out a long low breath.

Mick reached out with his other hand and slid his fingers along the side of Len’s face. “Just want to let you know, even when you come up with crazy plans, I’m following you.”

“Good to know, Mick.” He tilted his head back slightly, and Mick took the invitation to moved closer and kiss him. There was no heat, no urgency. It was quite chaste for them. But he squeezed Len’s hand, and Len felt the shock from their soulmarks all the way through his body. He shivered involuntarily at the contact.

“You two gonna make out all night or are we gonna make dinner?” Lisa called from the kitchen.

Len chuckled and pulled back. “Yeah, yeah.”

Mick groaned and rolled his eyes. “Now I’ve got to deal with two of you under one roof.”

Len laughed and pecked him on the lips, then he went to join Lisa in the kitchen. “Get used to it,” he called over his shoulder. “You ain’t getting rid of us any time soon.”

Mick smirked and followed. “I’m counting on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just ignore all the random made-up bullshit in this chapter and focus on the feel-good ending.
> 
> Thanks everyone for all the kudos and comments! I read them all and they make me so happy. I hope you enjoyed my story.


End file.
